66. Carl Fields
Carl A. Fields, pictured here, became the University’s Assistant Director of Student Aid and its first African-American administrator (the first such individual at any predominantly white university in the United States) in 1964. Though only 12 black students then attended Princeton, Fields pioneered policies to increase enrollment and retention of African-American and other minority students by creating unique and innovative support mechanisms within the University and local community. He also helped to establish the nationally influential Association of Black Collegians (ABC) and conceived the Frederick Douglass Award, now annually given to the graduating Princeton senior who has contributed “unselfishly towards a deeper understanding of the experience of racial minorities.” Fields later became Assistant Dan of the College and Chair of the University’s Human Relations Committee. In 1971, he helped to create Princeton’s Third World Center, dedicated to promoting diversity, equality, and pluralism at Princeton and beyond. In tribute, the Third World Center was renamed the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding in 2002, five years after his death.