Slaughter wins vote from unofficial presidential search website

Princetonpresident.com, a website created by visiting professor Mark Alexander and his American Studies class to gather suggestions regarding the University's presidential search process, named former Wilson School dean Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80 the winning candidate of the website’s voting process. Alexander and his class, AMS 313: The Law of Democracy, now plan to present their findings to the official presidential search committee in the coming weeks.

The University reportedly tried to shut down the unofficial site in October, though University Vice President and Secretary Robert Durkee ’69 denied the claim.

During the vote, those who visited the website were asked to choose from five candidates who had been chosen by Alexander and his class. Besides Slaughter, the other candidates were economics professor Harvey Rosen, English department chair William Gleason, University Provost Christopher Eisgruber ’83 and Dean of the New York University School of Law and former Wilson School visiting professor Richard Revesz ’79.

With around 300 votes cast, Slaughter won with more than 32 percent of the vote, Eisgruber came in second with 23 percent, Rosen came in third with 21 percent, Gleason came in fourth with 15 percent, and Revesz came in fifth with less than 8 percent of the vote, according to the website.

Slaughter and Eisgruber have been mentioned repeatedly as possible candidates to replace Tilghman. Both have said that while they were honored to be mentioned as contenders for the position, they would not comment on the presidential selection process.

Rosen served on the President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005, first as a member and then later as its chairman. Gleason is currently on leave for the fall semester.

Revesz was the only candidate identified by Alexander’s class who is not currently working at the University. His tenure as dean of NYU’s law school has been marked by a large increase in faculty size and significant success in fundraising. Revesz announced in October that he intended to step down as dean on May 30, telling the media at the time that he planned to remain a faculty member at NYU afterward.

The five final candidates had been selected by aggregating dozens of user suggestions and identifying the most commonly suggested individuals. After the most popular candidates were identified, the class then compared these contenders with a list of qualities and qualifications the class believed the future president should possess.

This list of qualities included “proven leadership,” “relate-ability,” “academic administrative ability,” “business acumen,” “a sense of direction for Princeton” and “ability to deal with the various University constituencies.”