Photo used with permission from the Office of Communications

Photo by Dino Palomares

Thomas Woodrow Wilson ’1879 spoke these words to the senior class shortly before he left the Princeton presidency in 1910 to become New Jersey Governor and, in 1912, U.S. President.  As a highly popular professor, he had delivered the famous address “Princeton in the Nation’s Service” at the sesquicentennial in 1896.  Upon assuming the University Presidency in 1902, Wilson instituted extensive academic reform by raising scholastic standards, supporting the student-initiated honor code, reorganizing the curriculum into two years of general study followed by concentration in one discipline, and hiring 50 assistant professors to create the preceptorial system, which allowed for teaching and learning in small discussion groups instead of large lectures.  Wilson could not, however, overcome powerful opposition to either a residential college “Quad Plan” that would have ended the eating club system or his argument for central campus placement of the Graduate College, and these defeats hastened his departure from the University.  Nonetheless, Wilson’s tenure substantially improved the quality of Princeton undergraduate education, and many of his then-idealistic plans have since been implemented to great success.

The Woodrow Wilson Award was established at Princeton University in 1956, one hundred years after Wilson was born, to recognize undergraduate alumni whose achievements signify exemplary service to the nation, in memory of Wilson’s phrase “Princeton in the Nation’s Service.”  Though this award was not conferred upon its namesake, Wilson’s leadership did not go unrecognized in his own time, as he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 for negotiations to end World War I and his advocacy of the League of Nations. Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, which was designed to prepare students for careers in public service in accordance with the tradition established by Wilson’s sesquicentennial oration, was renamed the Woodrow Wilson School in 1948.

• To learn more about Woodrow Wilson Award winners, see quotation #8, 16, 17, 19, 21, and 37, and Café Vivian picture #17, and 122.
  
  
• To learn more about Princetonians in national service, see quotation #3, 8, 11, 17, 19, 20, 21, 25, and 41, and Café Vivian picture #5, 15, 35, 41, 42, 74, 107, 110, and 119.
  
  
• To learn more about Nobel Prize recipients, see quotation #6, 12, 13, 24, 29, and 34, and Café Vivian pictures #29 and 60.
  
  
• To learn more about Woodrow Wilson Award winners, see quotation #8, 16, 17, 19, 21, and 37, and Café Vivian picture #17, and 122.
  
  
• To learn more about Princeton University presidents, see quotation #9, 11, and 41, and Café Vivian picture #33, 40, 95, 98, 105, 113, 122, and 125.
  
  
• To learn more about notable Princeton undergraduate alumni, see icon #4, 5, and 10, quotation #3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 36, 37, and 41, and Café Vivian picture #1, 5, 7, 15, 17, 39, 41, 55, 57, 59, 74, 76, 84, 88, 99, 101, 102, 107, 110, and 123.
  
  
• For more quotations about Princeton, see quotation #19, 20, 25, 35, and 38.
  
  
• To learn more about the Woodrow Wilson School, see Café Vivian picture #37 and 104.
  
  
• To learn more about the Graduate School, see quotation #3 and 28, and Café Vivian picture #44, 53 and 105.
  
  
• To learn more about major University anniversaries, see quotation #6 and 23, and Café Vivian picture #16, 18, 27, 34, 63, 65, 82, 98, and 112.
  
  
• To learn more about academics at Princeton, see quotation #9, 11, and 26, and Café Vivian picture #2, 10, 31, 50, 51, 59, 87, 93, 101, 104, 108, and 115.
  
  
• To learn more about residential life at Princeton, see Café Vivian picture #1, 11, 46, 62, 85, 127, and 128.

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