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Feature: March 19, 1997
Alumni Day
Presentations, 250th Anniversary events mark 82nd Alumni Day festivities
Some 2,000 alumni and friends of Princeton turned out for the 82nd celebration of Alumni Day. Events offered by the Alumni Council on a balmy, springlike February 22 included lectures on such diverse subjects as Princeton on TV, America's racial policy, the Hubble Space Telescope, and competition among cities for professional sports teams. Several 250th events marked the day, including the opening at the University Art Museum of a major exhibit from the collections of alumni, and a panel on alumni community-service projects.
At a luncheon in Jadwin Gymnasium, the university presented the Woodrow Wilson Award to Neil L. Rudenstine '56, the president of Harvard University, and the James Madison Medal to W. Anthony K. Lake *74, the National Security Adviser and director designate of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Wilson Award is bestowed on undergraduate alumni exemplifying "Princeton in the Nation's Service," and the Madison Medal on distinguished graduate alumni.
Earlier in the day, Rudenstine, a former provost at Princeton who assumed the presidency of Harvard in 1991, delivered an address on "Higher Education in the United States: A Personal View" to a full house in Alexander Hall. In his talk, Rudenstine outlined three areas of challenge, arguing for the need to educate more international students, to incorporate technology into the educational system, and to embrace student diversity. He attacked each point in a rapid-fire delivery, injecting humor along the way.
Rudenstine called for an "educational Marshall Plan" as part of a revised agenda for the future of American higher education. He noted that 450,000 international students, of whom an increasingly large percentage come from Asia, now attend American universities, and called for sustaining "our commitment to international student and faculty exchange programs. We benefit enormously from our overseas students. They add to our base of knowledge. They help to drive teaching and research in new and fruitful directions."
The benefits, of course, work both ways. "While we have much to learn about the rest of the world," said Rudenstine, "we are also in an unusual position to help others. We have the largest and most effective higher education system in the world, and we have the capacity to offer advanced and midcareer programs that are invaluable to foreign students and their countries. . . . Students from abroad who participate in such programs will come to understand America, its people, and its values better. They will also take back to their homelands new insights and capabilities that can make their own institutions and societies more effective."
Rudenstine also called for the creation of "flexible structures . . . to stimulate the study of important forces that transcend the boundaries of individual nations and regions," citing as examples "the problems . . . faced by emerging democracies"; and the causes of, and possible solutions to, ethnic or religious conflicts.
Turning to computer technologies, Rudenstine acknowledged concerns about the quality of information on the Internet and the loss of face-to-face contact when people communicate via computers. "But I am persuaded that the new technologies hold a great deal of promise for higher education," he said. "The Internet represents a revolution in learning." He called the Internet "an extremely versatile tool kit" that will complement, not supersede, learning as we know it, because it "places students in the driver's seat" and makes them active agents in learning.
Noting that mass printing in the late 19th century brought about the last big change in education, Rudenstine drew laughs by citing that era's concerns about students' burying themselves in books. The predictions sound familiar: young people would become unsociable, melancholic, and divorced from reality. One treatise even warned that it wasn't healthy for students to read after eating. Rudenstine offered predictions of his own, suggesting that we will see more learning at a distance, virtual colleges, electronic office hours, and learning taking place more or less continuously. The challenge, he added, is organizing the new technologies and putting them to the best use for education. He emphasized that these efforts would not come cheaply: Harvard has spent $50 million on information technology so far and expects to spend $150 million more in the next five years.
Finally, Rudenstine declared that diversity is critical to education in today's global environment. "The concept of education is discussion and debate-that's central to the whole idea-and if individuals are different, there is a large chance the discussion will be more robust. . . . It would be foolish to suggest that the lessons of diversity are easy, or that its educational benefits will always lead to harmony. At the same time, we need to remember that our national experiment in diversity has made remarkable progress. . . . To pull back now seems to me to run the greatest of all possible risks."
Anthony Lake, the Madison medalist, was scheduled to give a major foreign-policy address, but was unable to do so, pending congressional approval of his appointment as director of the CIA. Instead, he took part in a panel discussion with Wilson School faculty members on "Prometheus Bound? Domestic Politics and the Making of Foreign Policy."
At the luncheon, Lake made some personal remarks on receiving the Madison Medal, conferred on an alumnus or alumna of the Graduate School who has had a distinguished career, advanced the cause of graduate education, or achieved a record of outstanding public service. His studies at Princeton, he said, "reaffirmed my commitment to public service, public service with a purpose." He noted that the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. occurred while he was a graduate student. Lake added that when he left Princeton to return to Washington, he felt "reaffirmed in my belief that there is nothing better, nothing more fun, than getting up in the morning to work on a big problem and make some small contribution."
Campaign total at $363M; Seniors Share Pyne Prize
Alumni, students, and friends of Princeton gathered in Jadwin Gymnasium for the annual Alumni Day luncheon and awards ceremony. Spirits were high, and at least one participant chuckled at the stadium seats arranged to spell out "1746-1996" for the crowd below.
Richard O. Scribner '58, the chairman of the national Annual Giving Committee, reported on the progress of this year's AG effort and the five-year Anniversary Campaign, of which Annual Giving is a part. Twenty months into the campaign, the university has raised $363 million, almost half of the $750-million goal set for June 30, 2000. Scribner said that more than 88 percent of alumni have given to AG at some point, and it is hoped that over the course of the campaign, the figure can be boosted to 100 percent.
The five-year goal for AG is $125 million and 60 percent participation. The goal for 1996-97 is $27 million, of which $15 million has been pledged, Scribner said, with 30 percent of alumni having participated to date.
The following awards were presented to students and alumni:
The M. Taylor Pyne Prize, the university's highest general award for undergraduates, was shared by Davis McCallum '97 of Atlanta, Georgia, and Andrea Rolla '97 of Dover, Massachusetts. The two will split an amount equal to this year's tuition ($22,000). They were selected as the seniors who most clearly manifested "excellence in scholarship, character, and effective leadership in the best interests of Princeton."
A Rhodes scholar, McCallum founded the Princeton Shakespeare Company in 1994. He spent last spring traveling with the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, a professional repertory company based in Virginia, and he has participated in the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Public Theater. McCallum has volunteered his time to read to senior citizens, and last year he finished the New York City Marathon. As a junior, he received the Spirit of Princeton Award.
McCallum, who will earn a certificate in theater and dance, is writing a senior thesis that will link media theory, Hollywood musicals, and Shakespeare. At Oxford he will study "Shakespeare and the Drama to 1640" and work toward a master in philosophy. He expects to pursue a career that will allow him to act, write, teach, and direct.
Rolla is enrolled in the university's Teacher Preparation Program and this year taught first graders at Princeton's Riverside Elementary School. Last year, she was a Quest scholar and created a series of bilingual physics lessons that she taught to fifth graders at Princeton's Johnson Park Elementary School. She has been nominated for the Distinguished Teacher Candidate Award, given annually by New Jersey's Commissioner of Education.
Rolla is writing two senior theses. The first deals with dual immersion, the bilingual education method that puts students whose chief language is not English in the same classroom as students whose first language is English. Students become proficient in both languages. In her second paper, Rolla is translating several works of Silvinia Ocampo, an Argentine writer who spent part of her life in Europe. Rolla, whose parents are from Argentina, said she identified with a writer who had strong ties in two cultures.
As part of her Truman Scholarship, Rolla will spend the summer in the Washington, D.C., area working for the Department of Education. After teaching this year, Rolla has decided to work before attending graduate school. She has also worked with Apoyo, an organization that assists Latinos living in the Princeton area. Through Apoyo, Rolla plans to spend this semester working to ensure that the new Princeton Charter School will be able to serve Spanish-speaking students. Accepting the award, Rolla said that at Princeton she had "learned the importance of dialogue, both internal, to examine my ideas, and external, to challenge and value others' perceptions."
Candidates for Alumni Trustee. The Alumni Council announced the following candidates for alumni trustee: Joseph S. Nye, Jr. '58, Suzanne R. Perles '75, and Henry S. Stackpole III '57 (at-large); Peter F. Bastone '80, Regis S. Pecos '77, and John S. Young '69 (Region IV); and William J. Crowe, Jr. *65, Donald L. Drakeman *88, and William A. Thorsell *72 (graduate alumni).
The Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellowship was awarded to Harindran Chelvasekaran Manoharan '91, a graduate student in the electrical-engineering department. The university gives the prize to the graduate student "who has evinced the highest scholarly excellence," in the judgment of the faculty. The fellowship funds the final year of graduate study.
Manoharan studies new states of matter in "reduced-dimensional" systems. His research involves fabricating special structures of semiconductor materials and investigating the physics of these systems at extremely low temperatures and in very high magnetic fields. Under these conditions, the electrons in these devices behave differently.
The S. Barksdale Penick, Jr. '25 Award went to the alumni schools committees of the Princeton Club of Northwestern New Jersey, chaired by Paul M. Flowerman '71; the Princeton Club of Georgia, chaired by Katherine A. Brokaw '82; and the Princeton Alumni Association of Northern Arizona, chaired by Brian J. Campbell '87. The prize recognizes the regional group that has "most effectively realized the primary goals of Alumni Schools Committee work" in recruiting students and representing Princeton to its local community.
The Alumni Council Award for Community Service honored the Class of 1977. In response to the university's 250 X 250 challenge, this year's 20th-reunion class began a project with Habitat for Humanity. The class worked on a house at 29 Lytle Street, in Princeton. The house has been gutted and renovated and should be ready for occupancy in December, after which the project expects to begin work on a second house.
The Harold H. Helm '20 Award for "sustained and exemplary performance" to AG was given to James J. Morgan '63 of Greenwich, Connecticut.
The Class of 1926 Trophy went to the Class of 1946, which last year established a new record for 50th-reunion class giving with a total of $2,501,098. The effort was led by Class Agent Macdonald Flinn of Scarsdale, New York; Special Gifts Chairs S. Spencer Scott of Lyme, Connecticut; and Alexander L. Taggart of Indianapolis, Indiana; and Class President Arnold M. Berlin of Winnetka, Illinois.
The Jerry Horton '42 Award, for an outstanding regional AG committee that has "expanded the knowledge and awareness of Annual Giving," was presented to the Annual Giving Committee of Rochester, New York, chaired by Michael S. Schneider '72.
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