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December 20, 2000: Letters Presidents Clinton and Shapiro Exclusion doesn't lead to community Princeton's loss, astronomy's gain PAW welcomes letters. We may edit them for length, accuracy, clarity, and civility. Our address: Princeton Alumni Weekly, 194 Nassau St., Suite 38, Princeton, NJ 08542 (paw@princeton.edu). Presidents Clinton and Shapiro I hope not too many members of the Princeton family agree with Jason Brownlee GS, who was reported in the November 8 issue of PAW to have written an editorial in the Daily Princetonian “suggesting that President Clinton would make the ideal 19th president for the university.” Should Princeton, home of the honor system, have as its president a person who perjured himself before a grand jury and hedges about the meaning of the word “is”? If Clinton is considered seriously by the selection committee, I would like to join a resounding chorus with one accord — to keep him out. Another Bill named Bradley might, on the other hand, be a candidate most worthy of consideration. Kent Young ’50
While I suppose Jason Brownlee had his tongue in cheek when he suggested that President Clinton would make the ideal 19th president of Princeton, such a macabre presidency would necessitate extra security in the coeds’ dorms, a paid-up university sexual-harassment insurance policy, the formation of a Princeton University Clinton defense legal department, or the reversion to an all-male school (in which case President Clinton would probably decline to continue serving). The travesty of the Prince censorship issue — which I embarrassingly heard about on a national TV news show, which announced that censorship had come to Princeton University, where the first amendment no longer exists — is dwarfed by the fact that Bill Clinton was allowed to make a second appearance at the university. He is the antithesis of everything for which Princeton should stand, but doesn’t. I felt sorry for the dignity of President Shapiro, once again sharing the stage with Bill Clinton. Max S. Maizels ’72
The photograph of President Shapiro and President Clinton in Richardson Auditorium on page 13 of the November 8 issue shows President Shapiro smiling broadly at the congratulatory linking of his position as president of Princeton to the presidency of Bill Clinton. Among the reasons for their joint appearance was Clinton’s acceptance of the James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service. The professor who orchestrated President Clinton’s visit, Sean Wilentz, is a well-known partisan with transparent intentions. What interests me are the thoughts of President Shapiro. When he agreed to participate, and as he listened to the deliberate intertwining of the traditions of Princeton and the Clinton legacy, did he ask himself whether the actions of Bill Clinton as a public official might be inconsistent with the core values of intellectual life and academic community? What was the effect on President Shapiro of his knowledge that as sworn chief defender of our nation’s laws, President Clinton repeatedly perjured himself and attempted by his lies to subvert the equal application of those laws to his own behavior? If truth is a luxury to be jettisoned with impunity whenever its personal consequences seem too demanding, how does this affect an institution like Princeton? In such circumstances, what is the point, what is the value of impartial scholarship and disinterested intellectual pursuit? How can a university honor a notorious liar as a distinguished public servant without undoing the very reason for its existence? Dial Parrott ’66
At the risk of heresy, I’d like to offer my perspective on two of Princeton’s icons, James Baker ’52 and Ralph Nader ’55. In the recent presidential election, Mr. Nader let pretension of fame and glory divert him from the issues to which he’s been dedicated for decades — environment, consumer rights, and health care — jeopardizing the chances of the one major candidate who’d been Nader’s long-term ally on these issues. Mr. Baker? Well, what can one say about a bright guy who’s become the indefatigable consigliere of the less-bright Bush clan? Watching him one day decrying the Gore camp’s legal action to settle the outcome of Florida, and the next day launching a flurry of legal salvos of his own, made Baker look pretty sad indeed. Alas, from secretary of state to party apparatchik. I guess we’ll have to look to others to uphold the tradition of “Princeton in the Nation’s Service.” More than service to party or self. John W. Milton, Jr.
’57 Student-athletes at Princeton Your recent article “Profs and Jocks: Crossing the Great Divide” helped address the challenges faced by student-athletes at Princeton (feature, October 11). I was a four-year member and cocaptain of the men’s track and field team, and my body often waged battles against my mind for the right to sleep instead of reading late into the night. Recognizing the academic potential of student-athletes is critical, and I salute Professors Bressler and Wilentz for their efforts. Yet I hope that their proposed advising system for student-athletes will keep two things in mind. First, student-athletes often enter Princeton hyper-motivated and ambitious, seeing their academic careers as simply another challenge with a prize waiting at the end. Soon, however, they realize that their biggest challenge is not simply time management, but finding a way to take advantage of all the different courses and areas of study that Princeton has to offer. The current residential advising system fails student-athletes by treating their time constraints with disdain and effectively giving them an uninspired “to-do list” filled with distribution requirements. Often, student-athletes simply pick the easiest courses that fulfill the distribution requirements; then they do only what it takes to get by. If they seem unmotivated, that’s because they are, and this lack of motivation creeps into the student-athlete’s study habits in other, more important courses. The proposed system must recognize and capitalize on the drive to succeed that exists within most student-athletes, and encourage them to take courses that may seem more difficult on paper, but have a narrower focus or a more concrete purpose than broad-based “gut” courses. Secondly, the advising system must not limit its advising role to course selection. Advisers should be able to tell a student how to get bedboards to improve sleeping conditions; inform them about late-dinner and other food options; perhaps provide them with counseling resources that specialize in athletes (athletes don’t like to seem troubled, and walking into a counseling office in McCosh can by itself seem like an admission of failure or weakness); and provide a picture of career options available to student-athletes in liberal arts areas. (Keep in mind that student-athletes often represent a segment of the student body that doesn’t always come from a “well-connected” background, and they may not even be aware of certain professions available to Princeton grads. Picture the hard-working varsity athlete who goes premed almost reflexively as a freshman only to become a philosophy major as a junior. I think all will agree this student still has many career choices upon graduation.) In short, utilizing the talent and motivation of Princeton’s student-athletes will not only get them through, it will allow them to excel. Dan Wennogle ’97
Exclusion doesn’t lead to community “A Sense of Belonging” by Alex Rawson ’01 (On the Campus, October 25) raises serious questions about community at Princeton. Particularly significant was the statement by sophomore Shaka Smith: “Community, for me, is more students than it is faculty. I see faculty in [Frist], and I feel like they’re kind of invading my space.” What, then, is community? Is it defined by exclusion or inclusion? Community, in the end, cannot be created by fiat. It comes about organically through interaction and identification. Most of all, it happens because, as German philosopher Martin Heidegger pointed out, human beings care about each other. The forces of alienation at work at Princeton are the same ones at work in the society at large; isolation, suspicion, and self-absorption. The Princeton community, if there is to be one, must find new ways to celebrate itself constructively and not fall victim to the false god of technology (alone in one’s room, online for hours on end) or be swept away by mass culture. Community means “a unified body of individuals.” The challenge at Princeton is for this unified body to come about through respect and caring. When faculty and students can truly identify with each other, the new Princeton community will emerge. Richard Cummings ’59 Editor’s Note: For a longer essay by the letter writer about the subject, please go to PAW’s Web site, www.princeton.edu/~paw
Princeton’s loss, astronomy’s gain The article by Billy Goodman ’80 on Lyman Spitzer, considered by all of us who work in astrophysics as the “father of the Hubble Space Telescope,” raised a point that has always bothered my conscience a bit, but then went on to relieve my long-standing concern at least partially (feature, October 25). The author made much of Princeton’s failure to win the competition for hosting the Space Telescope Science Institute nearly 20 years ago, a competition that Princeton’s astrophysicists believed was destined to end in their success. Instead, the winner was the “much smaller, less distinguished department” at Johns Hopkins University. I can corroborate this characterization of the Johns Hopkins physics department at that time (though we have improved it greatly by now and added astronomy to the title), since I was then one of only two members of the department who held degrees in astrophysics. Had we been much stronger we still would have deferred to Lyman Spitzer for his great distinction in the field. I for one viewed him with awe from my undergraduate days in the outstanding department he chaired. When I first thought about mounting a campaign at Johns Hopkins to win the prized Space Telescope Science Institute, my love of Princeton made me hesitate briefly, but soon the thrill of intense competition took over, and there was no turning back. Even then I approached the task with the understanding that Princeton was almost certain to win. My initial goal was simply to put together a very credible alternative, since that would certainly have helped to raise Hopkins’s profile in the astronomical community and my department’s standing within the university. After more than a year of hard work on our proposal, I began to feel we had a real chance of winning, because, unlike Princeton, our strategy had been to try to team up with the one consortium we thought most likely to mount the strongest effort, and to put all our resources into helping them develop the enormously detailed management plan that was required by NASA. As described in the PAW article, the Princeton astronomers’ approach was to “try to be named the preferred site on all five bids.” They were consequently unable to devote the same level of intense effort needed to help each of the organizations prepare an outstanding proposal. Throughout the next 10 years I worked closely with Lyman Spitzer as a member of the Space Telescope Institute Council, which he chaired. And though I always felt a little sorry to have interfered with his hope that the Institute would have gone to Princeton, he certainly never revealed anything but kindness toward me. He was a very fine gentleman, in addition to being one of the great scientists of the 20th century and an excellent teacher. It was good to read Professor Ed Turner’s remark that, in hindsight, it may have been better for astronomy as a whole not to put the Institute in Princeton. The outcome has certainly had an enormous positive effect on Johns Hopkins. We too now have quite a distinguished program in astronomy, and we are currently collaborating with our colleagues in Princeton on another astronomical project of great significance that was born of the genius of certain members of Princeton’s illustrious faculty – the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Arthur F. Davidsen ’66 Alan Berlind ’56, in his letter to the Alumni Weekly (November 8), wonders parenthetically whether the new PAW logo is cuneiform or hieroglyphic. After consulting numerous Assyriological and Egyptological resources, I can say with some certainty that the blame for this new design does not rest on the civilizations of Near Eastern Antiquity. However, I have heard that Rome changed her logo just before the Goths arrived. J. L. Goldstein ’98
For an exhibition opening April 22 I would like to contact alumni who knew or worked with Elmer Adler in the Graphic Arts program at Princeton between 1950 and 1952 (or before or after in his other ventures). Ben Primer
Allan Demaree ’58, the writer of our story on Princeton’s endowment (Notebook, November 22), worked at Fortune magazine, not Forbes. The credit accompanying the photograph of President Shapiro and President Clinton (Notebook, November 8) was incorrect. The photographer was Richard Krauss. PAW regrets the errors. |
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