Taking the helm

The 'Prince' congratulates professor Shirley Tilghman on her election as the University's 19th president. She has proved herself to be a brilliant researcher and a personable teacher, and we look forward to seeing whether she will be an equally successful administrator.

President Shapiro came to Princeton with eight years of experience as president of the University of Michigan under his belt. Despite her numerous scientific and scholarly accomplishments, Tilghman herself will admit she has never managed a lab of more than 20 researchers. Now she has accepted to lead a university of more than 6,000 students — not to mention faculty, administrators and staff. Her leadership skills will certainly be put to the test.

Nevertheless, previous administrative experience is not necessarily a prerequisite for success. Princeton needs more than an accomplished manager as a leader. As a president, she must act with dedication, enthusiasm and a respect for the subtle details and demands of tradition and contemporaneity.

Tilghman has already demonstrated her dedication to the University, and her efforts to learn the names of every student in her STC 199: Origins of the Human Condition course have become well-known. We hope she will bring that same care and attention to detail to matters that affect the entire campus.

Though we are excited about her demeanor, we are concerned about some of her more controversial ideas, such as the abolition of tenure. Though she has modified her stance, now calling simply for a revision of tenure, we wonder about her plans. She also has proposed to cut funding for research panels that have not shown "good faith" efforts to include women and minorities. This proposal seems a bit extreme, since it is not clear that it would greatly improve or benefit the quality of research.

Looking to the near future, we hope Tilghman is prepared to face the challenges that lie ahead. She must delicately handle the 500-student increase and the construction of the sixth residential college. The changes to come in the next decade will alter the University forever.

We would like to think that most anyone would have jumped at the chance to lead the University as its 19th president. But the search committee chose to pick one of its own — a Princeton professor and parent. Hopefully those two roles will help her make sound judgements.

We are grateful for the long hours and great effort the members of the search committee put forth in selecting Tilghman. Their excitement about the decision suggests that they found the struggle worth it — just as we hope to.

While President Shapiro savors the last few weeks of his term, we wish President-elect Tilghman the best of luck in mapping out her plans for the new project she is about to begin. It will be a difficult job — she has no illusions about that. The Princeton community demands perfection from its president. We look forward to covering the story.