Description
Description
The Office of the President Records: Harold T. Shapiro document the administration of Princeton's eighteenth president, Harold T. Shapiro through correspondence, memoranda, press releases, and other materials. Topics found in the records include University finances, alumni fundraising, and Princeton’s 250th anniversary celebration. Also present are records documenting Shapiro’s interactions with students, faculty, staff, and various academic departments.
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Collection Creator
History
Harold Tafler Shapiro *64 was elected Princeton University's eighteenth president at a special meeting of the Board of Trustees on April 27, 1987. Like his predecessor William G. Bowen *58, Shapiro was no stranger to the Princeton University community, having distinguished himself at the Graduate School as a Harold Helm Fellow and a Harold Dodds Senior Fellow while earning a doctoral degree in economics from 1961-1964. The Princeton campus that Shapiro returned to, however, was radically different from that which he knew as a graduate student, having witnessed the advent of coeducation and the establishment of the residential college system during the interim years. Despite assuming office amidst the economic recession of the late 1980s, Shapiro managed to nearly quadruple the University's endowment as well as set into motion an ambitious building plan which indelibly changed the face of the campus and of academics and student life for years to come.
Born June 8, 1935 in Montreal, Canada, Shapiro received a Bachelor of Commerce degree (generally equivalent to the Bachelor of Business Administration degree more commonly offered in the United States) from Montreal's McGill University in 1956. Upon his graduation from McGill he earned that institution's prestigious Lieutenant Governor's medal, awarded to the student with the highest academic standing in a bachelor's degree program.
After five years at the helm of a family business, Shapiro applied for admission to Princeton's Graduate School and was admitted in the fall of 1961. As a graduate student he managed to earn his Ph.D. in three years, specializing in econometrics, mathematical economics, and the evolution of higher education. His dissertation The Canadian Monetary Sector: an Econometric Analysis was well-received, and immediately upon completion of his doctorate Shapiro accepted a faculty position in the University of Michigan's department of economics, where he soon became a popular professor noted for his skills in the classroom as well as his innovative research.
Though he was a professor at University of Michigan from 1964 to 1987, after 1977 Shapiro turned much of his attention to administrative duties following his appointments as Vice President for Academic Affairs and chairman of the Committee on Budget Administration. In 1980, in recognition of his sound budgetary policies and in the midst of a statewide economic recession, Shapiro was appointed president of the University. During his presidency, which lasted until December 1987, Shapiro demonstrated that he could with great success apply the economic principles he had tirelessly researched to the model of higher education, resulting in an increased campus budget and considerable progress on major construction projects at Michigan despite a relatively steady enrollment and conservative economic climate.
Harold Shapiro's prowess as a University president attracted attention nationwide, and by late 1987 he was reported to have turned down invitations from search committees at both Yale and the Institute for Advanced Study. Any desire to remain rooted at the University of Michigan dissipated however with the somewhat unexpected announcement by Princeton President William G. Bowen that he would be stepping down in short order to head the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Shapiro later conceded at the press conference to announce his election, "There is no other position in higher education that I would have been interested in."
The three-month search in the winter of 1987 for Bowen's successor was, by all accounts, shorter than anticipated. Trustee chairman James Henderson '56 attributed the brevity of the process to Shapiro's own clear aptitude for the position, stating that "Once we saw that we had such a strong consensus, we saw no merit in further delay, and the full board agreed yesterday unanimously." Shapiro was officially installed on January 8, 1988 as Princeton's 18th president, making him the University's first Jewish president and its first president drafted from outside of the ranks of the faculty in over 120 years.
For many involved with the administration of Princeton University, the arrival of Harold Shapiro brought something of an adjustment. The presidency of Shapiro's predecessor, William T. Bowen, was marked by an abnormally high level of firsthand participation in administrative affairs on the part of the president. Conversely, Shapiro's administrative style was more hands-off, and a fundamental aspect contributing to the eventual successes of his presidency would be his ability and his willingness to surround himself with the most capable advisors and staff.
Responses to this new leadership style were not warm at first and doubts about the future of the University under Shapiro were exacerbated by financial and social tumult on campus in the earliest stages of his presidency. In late 1988 Shapiro enacted a $6 million cut in operating expenses to compensate for two years of back-to-back deficits in the University budget. The responding uproar only quieted as it became apparent that other Ivy League schools with less financial foresight were paying the toll of recession and federal spending cuts with closed departments and shrinking faculty.
Beyond keeping the University afloat through the lean years of the early 1990s, Harold Shapiro's greatest financial success as president came in the form of the Anniversary Campaign, a fundraising effort launched on July 1, 1995 as part of the University's 250th Anniversary celebration. In the planning stages since 1993, the Anniversary Campaign was a volunteer effort targeting alumni, parents, and friends of the University, with an initial goal of raising $750 million over five years. All goals were surpassed however, and contributions from over 50,000 individuals translated into $1.14 billion, a record total for the University.
The effects of this massive fundraising effort were visible on campus almost immediately, as Shapiro set forth funneling contributions into a number of campus construction projects. Among these was the construction and renovation of the Scully Hall, Wright Hall, and Buyers Hall dormitories; the Princeton University Stadium, Weaver Stadium, Class of 1952 Stadium, and Shea Rowing Center athletic facilities; the Cotsen Children's Library; the University Chapel; and perhaps most visibly, the construction and opening of the Frist Campus Center, representing the realization of a vision for a central campus facility that had been essentially neglected since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.
Campus building initiatives and capital improvements only accounted for roughly $137 million of the funds raised however, with a massive $621 million in unrestricted donations directed immediately towards scholarships, fellowships, and new academic research programs. The resulting benefits included broader financial aid policies for undergraduates, as well as newly endowed chairs and research opportunities in emerging fields for faculty and scholars.
Almost immediately after taking office, the sometimes reticent Shapiro was faced with several instances of campus unrest and turmoil which would have posed a challenge to even the gregarious, avuncular Bowen. In February of 1988, eating club initiations resulted in 36 visits to the infirmary by students, several with severe cases of alcohol poisoning. A series of continued alcohol-related incidents resulted in Shapiro's enactment of a ban on all keg beer at University engagements in the fall of 1991. The ban, which only lasted a semester, led many students to claim Shapiro was out of touch with their concerns and misunderstood the nature of the alcohol problem on campus. Particularly during the first half of his term complaints of aloofness and a general lack of communication on the part of the Office of the President were common among students.
In addition to alcohol, a second contentious campus issue throughout Shapiro's presidency was the administration's relations with minority groups on campus. The cancellation of an appearance by the Rev. Louis Farrakhan in February 1989 due to security concerns resulted in the staging of a sit-in at Nassau Hall. Later in 1992, as the nation watched the Los Angeles riots, students vented their complaints of racism on campus to President Shapiro, who in turn vowed to make the development of improved race relations a focal point of the remainder of his presidency. The first tangible result of his promise was a 1993 report on the issue assembled by Vice-Provost Ruth Simmons, who herself would go on to become the Ivy League's first African American president at Brown University in 2000.
Despite these early setbacks, by the time Harold Shapiro announced his intentions to resign at the close of the academic year on September 22, 2000, the very fabric of campus life had changed to result in a more welcoming, open community for all. Characteristic of Shapiro's concern for campus social issues throughout the latter half of his presidency were initiatives that created additional funding for campus gay and lesbian groups, as well as the banning of on-campus recruiting by companies and groups with discriminatory hiring practices, including the CIA and the United States Army.
Following his resignation, Shapiro took a one-year sabbatical to rest and lecture periodically before returning to full-time teaching at Princeton as a professor in the Department of Economics. He continues to live in Princeton with his wife Vivian, an authority in the field of social work, with whom he has four daughters. Throughout his career Shapiro has been active in the corporate world, holding seats on the boards of Dow Chemical, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and several other for-profit and non-profit organizations. Additionally he has acted as vice-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, and as chair of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission under President Bill Clinton. He was succeeded by Shirley M. Tilghman, who was installed as Princeton's 19th president on June 15, 2001.
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