Tilghman takes helm as new era begins at Nassau Hall

New president looks ahead to university’s expansion.

By: Jeff Milgram
   It will be business as usual for Shirley Tilghman when she officially takes over as president of Princeton University today.
   There will be no bands, speeches or ceremony and no official transfer of power from retiring President Harold Shapiro. In fact, Dr. Tilghman isn’t sure if she’ll actually step into Nassau Hall, where the president’s office is located.
   She plans to do what she does every Friday, talking with students at the Lewis Thomas Laboratory, the home of Princeton University’s Department of Molecular Biology.
   A molecular biologist, Dr. Tilghman was named the founding director of the multidisciplinary Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics in 1998. The institute is under construction
   Technically speaking, Dr. Tilghman was sworn in as president by the university’s Board of Trustees during Reunions Weekend. On Sept. 28, there will be a formal installation ceremony in front of Nassau Hall.
   "It will be a celebration, a beginning," she said.
   A member of the Princeton faculty since 1986, Dr. Tilghman said leaving the world of science may be the hardest part of becoming the university’s president.
   And while she knows that she has much to learn, Dr. Tilghman feels comfortable about joining the elite world of university presidents.
   "I have a huge advantage that a lot of university presidents don’t have. I’ve been here 15 years … I know a third of the university community," she said.
   Dr. Tilghman has spent time with Dr. Shapiro; outgoing provost Jeremiah Ostriker; and other members of the university administration, identifying short- and long-term priorities.
   She said the overriding issue during the first few years of her presidency will be the 500-student expansion, the university’s first since it admitted women in the 1970s, and the construction of a sixth residential college.
   "This is a major challenge, from making sure there are enough beds to making sure students can interact with faculty," she said.
   The expansion will be phased in over several years.
   "We don’t want to find that all 500 want to major in economics," she said.
   The university, she said, will have to decide from where it will draw the additional students: from the 15,000 high school seniors who apply each year or from the untold number of students who might have misconceptions about Princeton and do not apply.
   In a wide-ranging interview in her transition office in Nassau Hall, Dr. Tilghman said a task force will be convened in the fall to study the status of women in science and engineering at Princeton.
   "In some science departments, women are underrepresented at the faculty level and some departments at the graduate level," she said.
   She wants to make sure the university is making women undergraduates feel comfortable majoring in science or engineering.
   Dr. Tilghman also said the university will continue to take part in municipal projects, such as the Princeton Public Library and the Princeton Regional School District’s renovation and expansion project.
   "It is incumbent on us to be good citizens," she said. "We dominate this community … our employees are residents of this community."
   Dr. Tilghman said she helped raise some money for the genomics institute and felt comfortable doing it.
   "I like it and think I could be good" (at fund raising), she said.
   "The key to fund raising is to have a great story to tell," she said.
   She also feels confident the university will find a qualified replacement for her at the genomics institute.
   "We’re looking for someone with some vision," she said.
   "A lot of the hard work has already been done … the building designed and construction has begun … Whatever candidate we attract will know that the president of the university will look kindly" upon the institute, she said.
   On the issue of the campaign for university workers’ rights, Dr. Tilghman said Princeton will continue to take steps to keep the pay of its low-paid service workers at market rates. But, she said, the university will not grant mandatory cost-of-living increases because of the uncertain economy.
   Dr. Tilghman was a faculty member of the presidential search committee that worked to find a successor to Dr. Shapiro. At one meeting, she had to leave because of a teaching commitment, and members of the committee were so impressed by her dedication they decided to ask her to be a candidate.
   The rest is history.
   "The presidential search committee was really an education in university presidency," she said. "We spent a good three months talking about what are the important issues in higher education and how do they apply to Princeton."
   The committee held extensive meetings with university presidents and past presidents and provosts around the nation.
   From those discussions, Dr. Tilghman found that university officials across the country are facing the same two main issues: the impact information technology will have on higher education and the relationship universities will have with the larger world.