Tilghman succeeded
Harold Tafler Shapiro and became the 19th president of Princeton University in 2001. She was elected Princeton's first woman president on May 5, 2001, and assumed office on June 15, 2001. Under her administration, the university built a sixth residential college, named in honor of alumna
Meg Whitman, to accommodate an 11 percent expansion of the undergraduate student body (an increase of some 500 students), as recommended by a special committee of the Board of Trustees chaired by Paul M. Wythes. In 2012, Tilghman announced that she would step down from her presidency in June 2013. She was succeeded by the university's then-provost,
Christopher L. Eisgruber. For Tilghman, Princeton has two essential missions. "One is to ensure that our doors are open as wide as possible to every talented student in the world who is capable of doing the hard work we ask of them. And that means maintaining our commitment to financial aid, which is the tool – the critical tool – to get those students to Princeton. And the second thing is that we must address the most critical issues, and push back the frontiers of knowledge, and not just in science and technology, but in social policy, and in public policy, and in understanding the nature of the human condition." The establishment of
Whitman College, together with the reconstruction of Butler College, accompanied a significant reconfiguration of Princeton's residential college system, which now incorporates upperclassmen as well as freshmen and sophomores, providing new residential options and increasing opportunities for social interaction across the student body. In addition, an effort has been made to strengthen the relationship between the university and Princeton's independent eating clubs, where most upperclassmen take their meals, with the goal of enhancing the undergraduate experience of all students. In 2009, she appointed a committee chaired by
Nannerl O. Keohane to review undergraduate women's leadership at Princeton.
Academics Tilghman has presided over a number of academic initiatives at Princeton, including the creation of a Center for African American Studies, the Lewis Center for the Arts (named after alumnus
Peter B. Lewis), the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment (after alumnus
Gerhard R. Andlinger). Along with the renewal of the Department of Chemistry, these steps have both capitalized on Princeton's existing strengths and broken new ground, ensuring that the university will, in Tilghman's words, continue
"to make the world a better place through the power of the mind and the imagination." Diversity More broadly, Tilghman's presidency has placed an emphasis on increasing the diversity of Princeton's faculty and students; widening access to the university through improvements to its generous financial aid program and the elimination of admission through "early decision"; fostering a multidisciplinary approach to teaching and research; and strengthening the university's international perspective through a wide range of initiatives – from the Global Scholars Program, which brings international scholars to campus on a recurring basis, to the Bridge Year Program, which gives incoming freshmen an opportunity to defer their studies for a year in order to devote themselves to public service overseas.
Funding higher education Student loans As her presidency started the university accomplished the long-hoped-for goal of eliminating the need for student loans; Princeton became the first American university to replace student loans with grants from its endowment. In principle, students earning a Princeton degree could graduate debt free.
Tuition The size of the endowment and the success of these programs prompted some to question whether Tilghman would implement a policy of eliminating tuition altogether. In her
Wall Street Journal article on this matter, she indicated that Princeton would continue to charge tuition, and that she felt that charging tuition was a morally and economically correct policy to maintain.
Fundraising During her tenure the percentage of students receiving some form of financial aid increased and the size of the average award also increased. These policies were partially facilitated by the growing size of the university's
financial endowment, whose income is used to finance the university's mission alongside tuition, and the annual funding of the operating budget through alumni donations from Princeton's Annual Giving campaign.
Controversies Pro-women hirings Although President Tilghman has been accused of favoring women in her hiring practices, in fact, most of her appointees have been men. The women she has hired to senior positions include
Amy Gutmann as provost, the second-most-powerful administrative position in the university,
Anne-Marie Slaughter as Dean of the
Princeton School of Public and International Affairs fka Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as well as her successor
Christina Paxson,
Maria Klawe as Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Janet Lavin Rapelye as the Dean of Admission. Gutman would go on to lead the
University of Pennsylvania as their president in early 2004; Klawe was chosen president of
Harvey Mudd College in 2006. Slaughter took a leave from the university to serve as Director of Policy and Planning at the
U.S. State Department, reporting to the
Secretary of State at the time,
Hillary Clinton. Paxson became president of
Brown University in 2012. Tilghman has appointed prominent men to leadership positions at Princeton, such as Charles Kalmbach as the senior vice president for administration, the highest non-academic administrative post,
David P. Dobkin as dean of the faculty, Gutmann's replacement as provost and Tilghman's successor
Christopher L. Eisgruber, and Klawe's replacement
Vincent Poor. She initiated a review of undergraduate women's leadership at Princeton, chaired by
Nannerl O. Keohane; the review found that the early prominence for women in leadership positions that accompanied to introduction of women students to the campus had recently not been as frequently repeated. in which intercollegiate athletes were enjoined from taking part in supervised practices and other obligatory athletic activities for seven weeks during the academic year in order to encourage them to participate in other activities. Supporters of the proposal pointed to studies by former Princeton president
William G. Bowen, whose controversial book
The Game of Life purported to describe widespread academic "underperformance" of college athletes. Detractors claimed that the book was flawed,
Corporate board matters In August 2012, Tilghman was
subpoenaed in her dual capacities as Princeton's president and as a member of Google's board, as part of a suit to block a board approved 2-for-1 Google stock split that the complaining party claimed would represent "an unfair effort to diminish its voting power while reserving voting rights for the company’s founders
Larry Page and
Sergey Brin". All members of the Google board received subpoenas. In the case of Tilghman, "records of donations, contribution pledges or promises made by Tilghman or the university to any charities, organizations, foundations or educational institutions that have any affiliation with Page, Brin, Schmidt or Google" were demanded.
Precedents While Tilghman disquieted some alumni by championing
affirmative action policies, establishing a single admission process, and broadening the range of residential and dining options available to students, she also found strong support for these actions and their underpinning vision. Tilghman presided over a major effort to advance the growing community of Princeton Alumnae, culminating in a campus conference entitled "She Roars". In her final year, Tilghman led the first major university celebration for "alternative genders", resulting in an immensely successful on-campus LGBT alumni gathering; this was the first of its kind on any campus in the United States and set a precedent for the advancement of the LGBT community nationwide.
Internal roles As president of Princeton University, Tilghman was also an ex-officio trustee of the Princeton Board of Trustees, and chairman of Princeton Honorary Degrees Committee. Tilghman orchestrated an orderly transition from her other Princeton roles after being named president.
David Botstein succeeded Tilghman as the Director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute of Integrative Genomics in 2003. Ned S Wingreen succeeded her as the Howard A Prior Professor of Life Sciences. She eventually closed her lab to dedicate her time fully to the presidency; in doing so, she assured that all students who had begun with her as adviser were able to successfully complete their degrees and associated research before the lab closed. An award-winning teacher, Tilghman continued to conduct classes even while serving as president. She became a "Princeton Parent" when her daughter matriculated at Princeton as an undergraduate during her tenure as president and was accorded honorary alumna status to a record number of Princeton classes.
External roles While serving as president of Princeton, Tilghman accepted membership on the board of directors of
Google, and served in that capacity from October 2005 to February 2018. As compensation for joining the board, she received 6,000 shares of stock that by 2005 were worth in excess of her Princeton compensation package that by 2003 had reached $533,057. Beginning in 2001, she served for a time on the
Queen University's Chemistry Innovation Council in order to help the development of the Chemistry program at Queen's, which is based in
Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Tilghman served on the board of trustees at
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), Long Island, New York, during the early years of her presidency. In 2006, Tilghman was one of three sitting university presidents who served on the Duke University President's Council that investigated the university's wide-ranging actions after the lacrosse players scandal wherein members of the Duke lacrosse team were charged with various types of inappropriate and allegedly illegal off campus behavior.
Successor On September 21, 2012, Shirley informed the Princeton Board of Trustees that she planned to step down as the 19th president of Princeton University at the end of the 2012 academic year. On April 21, 2013, it was announced that
Christopher L. Eisgruber would succeed Tilghman as Princeton's president, effective July 1. Notable Princeton alumnus Peter Lewis 1955 said at the time, "Ideally, she'd be remembered for grooming a terrific successor." ==Personal life==