Description
Description
The Graduate School Records consist of minutes, correspondence, reports,
writings, applications, surveys, and memoranda, as well as forms, course
listings, and information on examinations and fees. The Deans' subject files
make up a large part of the collection. Dean Andrew Fleming West's records,
including his writings, correspondence, and in particular his scrapbooks, make
up a substantial portion of this collection as well.
Collection Creator
History
The earliest form of organized graduate education at Princeton began when President
James Carnahan announced the establishment of a Law School in 1846, which awarded
its last degree in 1852. Graduate work in a formal sense emerged at Princeton in the
1870s when President James McCosh added new faculty and graduate fellowships. The
introduction of graduate work in the sciences came with the opening of the John C.
Green School of Science in 1873, offering both masters and doctoral degrees.
Princeton's Graduate School, established officially by the Trustees in late 1900,
began its operations in the fall of 1901. The School's first dean, Andrew Fleming
West, sought to improve the quality of education by insisting on high entrance and
academic standards and by creating what he believed to be the proper residential
setting, a Graduate College, where the students would learn from one another.
Merwick, located on Bayard Lane and provided by benefactor Moses Taylor Pyne in
1905, served as the first residence for graduate students. It housed twelve to
fifteen students and served as a dining facility and center of recreation.
Upon her death in 1906, Josephine Thomson Swann, the first benefactor of the Graduate
School, bequeathed $275,000 to Princeton for the construction of a Graduate College
in her late husband's name. This money allowed Dean West and President Woodrow
Wilson to formulate plans for the Graduate School, but controversy came with the
building of the Graduate College, which would replace Merwick as a residence for
students. West proposed that the College be remotely located, away from the
distractions of undergraduate life, while Wilson favored a site near Prospect House.
William Cooper Procter, Class of 1883, who contributed funds for what would become
Procter Hall, strongly campaigned for the site near the golf links. He offered
$500,000 toward the Graduate College, but found Wilson's choice for the site
unsuitable and made his offer conditional “upon further understanding that some
other site be chosen, which shall be satisfactory to me.” Wilson refused to accept a
gift upon such terms, and held tightly to his belief that West could not succeed in
his plan to locate the Graduate College at the golf links, away from the “existing
life of the University.” Although Wilson had the support of the faculty and a
majority of the trustees, Procter still insisted on his conditions.
After weighing the options, Howard Crosby Butler, the first Master-in-Residence of
the Graduate College, agreed with West that a Graduate College apart from the
undergraduates was wise based on his “practical experience with the group of
graduate students at Merwick.” Isaac Chauncey Wyman, Class of 1848, who came to side
with Dean West and William Cooper Procter, left the bulk of his estate, initially
estimated at two million dollars, to the Graduate College, and it was this that
ultimately settled the question of its location. In his report to the trustees,
Wilson finally accepted West's plan for the location and acceded to Procter's
conditions. Once the site controversy was settled, architect Ralph Adams Cram, the
“high priest” of American Collegiate Gothic, designed the College as a complex
consisting of a quadrangle, the Pyne Memorial Tower for the residence of the Master
of the College, and the great hall, Procter Hall, which became known for its stained
glass windows, carved timber ceiling, and pipe organ. A “collegiate” lifestyle
developed at the Graduate College, with recreation, lectures, and meals together in
Procter Hall. The Graduate College provided graduate students with a communal life
outside of the classrooms and laboratories.
World War I radically changed the character of the nascent Graduate School as
students left for war service, and the Graduate College was leased to the military
for training naval officers. Until 1922, the Graduate School had limited its
enrollment to 200 degree candidates. Several departments, such as history, English,
and chemistry, felt increased pressure to admit students beyond the 1922 quotas. By
1932, under Dean Augustus Trowbridge (1928-1933), enrollment was raised to 250, but
it was not until the administration of Dean Hugh Stott Taylor (1945-1958), that the
upper limit was finally removed. With increased research funds in math and sciences
came assistantships for students. By World War II, Dean Luther Eisenhart
(1933-1945), who had come on board during the Depression, had given the Graduate
School a new sense of mission and increased claim to excellence. He changed doctoral
regulations, redefined master's degrees, and created scholarships.
As World War II wound down and enrollment began strongly increasing again, the
Graduate School faced a housing crisis, especially for married students. Married
veterans and their families moved into what were at one time army barracks, the
Butler Apartments, on Harrison Street. The shape of graduate education in the
postwar years became a major interest, and Dean Taylor oversaw the postwar expansion
of the Graduate School. He added new doctoral programs and brought alumni more fully
into the University family through the creation of the Association of Princeton
Graduate Alumni. The establishment of the Forrestal Campus in 1951, which included
the Plasma Physics Laboratory and a particle accelerator, helped cement Princeton's
reputation as a world-class institution in the study of physics
Under Dean Donald Hamilton (1958-1965), the enrollment of the Graduate School
continued to increase steadily. The fellowship budget grew, as did the number of
interdisciplinary programs. Princeton admitted its first woman graduate student as a
special case in 1961, and in 1968 the Graduate School's doors were officially opened
to women. Throughout the 1960s, the recruitment of minorities, especially African
Americans, grew. Toward the end of the 1960s, with the global political climate
changing, Princeton, like other graduate schools, felt increasing pressure to admit
more students from other nations.
After weathering Vietnam War protests in the 1970s, the Graduate School faced further
problems with funding, particularly in the humanities. Budget cuts served to reshape
the Graduate School's demography, financing, programs, and morale through to the
early 1990s. Steady growth throughout the latter part of the decade, however, can be
attributed to doctoral students remaining enrolled in extended programs in order to
conduct sophisticated research, acquire foreign languages and study in foreign
countries, among other things. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Graduate School saw more
specialties in academic departments and the establishment of focused research
institutes and centers, as well as a strong exchange program with peer
institutions.
Deans of the Graduate School
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Andrew Fleming West (1901-1928)
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Augustus Trowbridge (1928-1933)
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Luther Pfahler Eisenhart (1933-1945)
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Sir Hugh Stott Taylor (1945-1958)
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Donald Ross Hamilton (1958-1965)
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Colin Stephenson Pittendrigh (1965-1969)
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Aaron Lemonick (1969-1973)
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Alvin B. Kernan (1973-1977)
-
Nina G. Garsoian (1977-1979)
-
Theodore J. Ziolkowski (1979-1992)
-
Albert Raboteau (1992-1993)
-
John F. Wilson (1994- )
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