January 24, 2007: Features

Tigers around the world

Map by Tsering W. Shawa

Source: Alumni Council, 2006

You can’t find a Princeton alum in every country of the world, but chances are, you don’t have to travel far before you would run into one. According to the Alumni Association office, there is someone in Burkina Faso, and there are three alumni in Myanmar. Six alumni should be reading this PAW in Nepal; five people, in Iran. There are, we believe, 114 nations without a single Tiger in residence – so if you’re reading this in Cuba, Tajikistan, Martinique, or Libya, for example, let the alumni office know. Here are facts about some of Princeton’s 160 regional alumni associations and concentrations of Tigers:

Largest regional association: Princeton Association of New York City, with 7,159 alumni.

Largest alumni region outside the United States: Canada, with about 1,270 alumni and eight provincial associations. The next-largest concentration of alumni is across the pond in the United Kingdom: 930 Tigers.

Smallest active region (meets and conducts interviews with applicants): Colombia, with 28 alumni – 22 of whom are graduate alumni.

Largest region where English is not the native language: Japan, with 397 alumni.

Busiest international associations: Canada, Great Britain, Germany, and Hong Kong. But the Princeton Club of India, which came together again a year ago after long being inactive, seems determined to catch up: In the fall, it was already working on its fourth event. And the club in Greece frequently hosts professors from the Hellenic studies department.

Oldest active association: New York, founded in 1866. President James McCosh encouraged the creation of regional associations to strengthen alumni support for Princeton. By the end of his term in 1888, there were 17 clubs, ranging from the Princeton Alumni Association of Trenton just a few miles from campus to the Princeton Alumni Association of the Pacific Coast.

Newest association: The Princeton Alumni Association of Turkey, formed in 2006. About 70 alumni live in Turkey.

Newest international schools committee interviewers: In 2006, new schools committee leaders living in these countries have gone to work interviewing applicants: Bahrain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Guam, Iceland, Lebanon, Peru, South Africa, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Venezuela.

Tsering W. Shawa is geographic information systems librarian at Princeton.