January 24, 2001: From the Editor

Major milestones can be tricky things to nail down. Wedding anniversaries and birthdays are usually straightforward, but when it comes to the founding of institutions, timing is often subject to interpretation. For example, Princeton traces its moment of incarnation to the signing of its charter by acting New Jersey governor John Hamilton in 1746, but classes didn’t begin until the following year. Nassau Hall wasn’t completed until 1756, and the college wasn’t officially named Princeton University until a surprisingly late 1896.

A similar murkiness shrouds the beginnings of Princeton’s graduate school. The university likes to call James Madison 1771 its first graduate student -- he stayed on for six months of post-undergraduate study with President John Witherspoon -- but Princeton’s first doctoral degree was not awarded until 1879, to William Libbey 1877. (Libbey went on to become a distinguished geographer and meteorologist, accompanying Arctic explorer Robert Peary to Greenland; he also served 41 years on Princeton’s faculty and translated the university’s general catalogue from Latin to English.) That’s still 21 years before the trustees formally voted to establish the graduate school and 32 before construction began on the buildings of the actual Graduate College itself.

Still, institutions need excuses to celebrate, and the Graduate School has chosen 2000–01 as its Centennial year. Who is PAW to argue? In honor of the occasion, we’re devoting this issue to an examination of the Graduate School: how the school’s history has shaped its uneasy relationship with the undergraduate college, and how the ties between the two campuses and student bodies are slowly, if a bit painfully, beginning to grow stronger; the burgeoning career opportunities available to graduate degree holders today; and finally, for levity and no doubt debate, a roster of 100 notable Princeton graduate alumni.

J. T. Miller ’70, Princeton’s resident historian, often presents a slide show to alumni groups called “The Surprising History of Princeton’s Graduate School.” It’s an apt title. While many undergraduate alumni -- especially those who moonlighted as Orange Key guides -- know the outline of Princeton’s history as a college, many might be startled to learn that a fight over the graduate school caused Woodrow Wilson 1879 to resign Princeton’s presidency -- see page 24 for details -- or that John Grier Hibben 1882, Wilson’s successor, earned his Ph.D. from the university in 1893.
Which leads us back to the question of timing. In the end, though, precise dates don’t matter. In fact, the start of a new millennium -- itself fodder for debate over timing -- provides a fine opportunity to look back at a century (plus) of graduate education at Princeton.