After months of searching for a new president, Princeton University recently tapped Molecular Biology Professor Shirley Tilghman for the position, making her the first female leader of the New Jersey institution.
Tilghman also becomes just the third woman ever named president of an Ivy League institution. Penn President Judith Rodin became the first in 1994.
An enthusiastic teacher and an eminent scientist in her field, Tilghman was officially named Princeton's 19th president on May 5. She will take office on June 15, after the departure of outgoing President Harold Shapiro.
Mark Johnston, a member of the presidential search committee and chairman of the Princeton Philosophy Department, said that the committee had a strong sense of the qualities it wanted for the position.
"They had to be a person of high moral character, they had to be a first-rate scholar and they had to have a particular understanding for the variety of research and teaching that takes place at Princeton -- especially of our unique commitment to undergraduate teaching," Johnston said.
"It went very quickly from there," he added.
Tilghman was originally a member of the search committee -- one of the five faculty members among the 1'-person group, which also included trustees, staff and students. But six weeks ago, Tilghman left early for a teaching engagement.
In her absence, the committee agreed to ask her to consider candidacy and undergo the formal application process.
"We're all very happy that she decided to accept the offer," said Princeton senior P.J. Kim, a member of the search committee. "She's always been really committed and dedicated to students here. That's a very attractive quality to have in a leader of young people."
When she succeeds Shapiro, who is leaving after 13 years at the helm, Tilghman will join Rodin on the list of female Ivy League presidents. The president-elect of Brown University, Ruth Simmons, will take the reins on July 1.
"I really do think that it's a recognition that women are excellent leaders and that they have enormous potential and energy and vision for great universities," Rodin said. "I feel personally gratified that whatever successes I have had here may have encouraged other boards of trustees to imagine that this was possible for their institutions as well."
Tilghman is the director of Princeton's Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, which she founded in 199' after her efforts to help establish the national project for decoding the human genome. She has taught at Princeton for 14 years.
But Tilghman was not a slave to her lab, having sought to spread her love of science to others.
She taught one of Princeton's first science-based freshman seminars, and she chaired the school's Council on Science and Technology -- which seeks to teach science and technology to those outside the fields -- from 1993 until 2000.
While Princeton faces the challenges of expanding the student body and building a new residential college over the next several years, Johnston insists that the search committee has not mapped out the university's future.
"We didn't impose any agenda," he added. "We just felt comfortable putting the institution in her hands."
Earlier in her career, Tilghman was an adjunct associate professor of human genetics and biochemistry and biophysics at Penn.
"We in the genetics community are really pleased that she's taking on this job," said Haig Kazazian, chairman of Penn's Genetics Department. "She's a very esteemed scientist, and I think she'll be a great leader."
Princeton's Undergraduate Student Government President Joseph Kochan said that the Princeton community's enthusiastic response to their next president was not unexpected.
"It was a process that was extremely fair and representative," Kochan said, noting the three student representatives on the selection committee. "On Harvard's president selection committee, it was all trustees, no faculty, no students."
The Princeton announcement was followed three days later by the naming of New York University's law school dean, John Sexton, as president. Sexton will succeed L. Jay Oliva next May as president of the nation's largest private university.
