Wilson, Rockefeller Colleges name new heads

Professor of Religion AnneMarie Luijendijk and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Clancy Rowley ’95 have been named the new heads of Wilson and Rockefeller Colleges. The professors were selected by Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan, Senior Associate Dean of the College Claire Fowler, and Dean of the College Jill Dolan through an application process open to all full professors, Dolan wrote in an email.

Luijendijk joined the University faculty in 2006 after receiving her doctorate from Harvard Divinity School. She specializes in the social history of early Christianity and is an associated faculty member in the Department of Classics and the Programs in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Hellenic Studies, Judaic Studies, and Medieval Studies. She also serves on Executive Committees in the Council of the Humanities, Iranian and Persian Studies, Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, the Program in the Ancient World, and the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies.

Luijendijk said she has been interested in becoming a college head since she began teaching at the University.

“I really enjoy engaging with Princeton students, and I like teaching in the classroom, but my philosophy of teaching is that teaching doesn’t only happen in the classroom,” Luijendijk said. “That really appeals to me, the opportunity to meet wonderful young people, and also to forge new and different connections between faculty and students, because we’re all in the business of learning and enjoying each other’s company.”

Luijendijk said her experiences of traveling and dining with students have also contributed to her interest of becoming a college head.

“I really believe in meals as places where wonderful conversations can take place,” she explained. “Once you know each other better, then you can know who to approach if you have a question about something. We’re about creating diversity and [about] knowing somebody’s story instead of just seeing them from a distance,” she said.

Luijendijk anticipates that her first step as college head will be to “begin having conversations with the staff and with the students about what they think is important for the college.”

She said that one aspect of Wilson College that appealed to her was the social activism at its roots. Wilson is the only residential college founded by students, inaugurated in the late 1950s as an alternative to exclusive eating clubs.

“What I really like about Wilson is the history of social justice,” Luijendijk said. “That’s definitely a vision that I think is very important.”

Luijendijk added she was looking forward to meeting students by inviting them to her house for dinner and via conversations in the dining hall. She was also excited for students to meet her husband and four children.

Rowley received an undergraduate degree from Princeton in 1995 and a doctoral degree from Caltech in 2001, both in mechanical engineering. He joined the University faculty as an assistant professor in 2001 and was appointed associate professor in 2007 and full professor in 2012. Currently, Rowley is an associated faculty member in the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics and the Princeton Institute for Computational Science and Engineering. His research focuses on reduced-order models suitable for analysis and control design.

Rowley has also served as director of graduate studies in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering since 2015 and has been a faculty fellow of Whitman College since 2007 and of Rockefeller College from fall 2001 to spring 2007.

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“Since I was an undergraduate here, I feel strongly about the undergraduate experience. I think the residential colleges are a great way to build community amongst the undergraduates,” Rowley said.

Rowley said that his experience serving as a freshman adviser contributed to his interest in becoming a college head. “I see that as being a big role of the college head, to welcome new freshmen into the colleges,” he said.

“I want to make sure that Rocky is a welcoming community for everybody, [where] everybody can feel like it’s a safe home and a place where they can have open conversations without feeling like they’re being judged or threatened,” Rowley said. “I want it to feel like home for the people who are in Rocky.”

Although Rocky is a two-year college, Rowley said that one of his goals as college head is to increase interaction between the college’s upperclassmen and underclassmen. He thinks it would be beneficial for both seniors and new freshmen to meet.

“I would love to think about ways to bring juniors and seniors back to Rocky and be more engaged in the community,” Rowley said.

“One thing I'm excited about is involving my family in the college,” Rowley added. “I've got a wife and two young kids, a nine-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl, and they’re really looking forward to it. I think they’re going to love coming to Rocky and eating with the students.”

In an email to the ‘Prince,’ Dolan wrote that she expected Rowley and Luijendijk to excel as college heads “because they bring a perfect mix of scholarly vitality and personal warmth and engagement to this new commitment.”

“In our conversations with them as we moved through the vetting process, Clancy and AnneMarie appeared full of ideas and creativity, and demonstrated genuine curiosity about the past, present, and future of Wilson and Rocky Colleges,” Dolan said. “Their commitment to building our residential college communities is exciting and admirable.”

Rowley will succeed Jeff Nunokawa, a professor in the Department of English who has served as the head of Rocky since 2006. Luijendijk will succeed Eduardo Cadava, a professor in the Department of English who has served as Wilson’s head since 2009. Both new heads will begin their four-year terms on July 1.