University to install Tilghman

Shirley M. Tilghman will be formally installed as the 19th president of the University today at 3:30 p.m.

The administration expects that over 1,000 students will attend the ceremony, based on its online RSVP service. The newly-planted lawn in front of Nassau Hall has been equipped with 4,300 chairs and will allow for substantial standing room.

President Richard Levin of Yale University and members of the Princeton community will introduce Tilghman, who will then give an address.

The celebration will continue at Weaver Track and Field Stadium at 5:30 p.m. Campus services and activities around the University will be temporarily suspended to encourage students to attend the event. Attendees are asked to wear semi-formal attire with orange and black coloring. Hors d'oeuvres will be circulating inside the track and a buffet will be open in Jadwin Gymnasium.

Several a capella groups will perform beginning at 6 p.m. Afterwards, Tilghman will deliver a speech, which she rewrote in light of the tragedies of Sept. 11. "There remain some important things that need to be said," she said.

Tilghman's address will be followed with a concert by honorary member of the Class of 1949 Mary Chapin Carpenter. After her performance, D.J. Bob and the Jacques Johnson Band will provide the entertainment.

Since June 15, Tilghman has been serving as president of the University after having been privately sworn in.

Planning for today's events began shortly after she assumed the position. The first decision in the planning process was to determine a date for the ceremony.

"We wanted to allow the University a couple weeks to reassemble," said University Vice President and Secretary Tom Wright '62.

The University administration, under the direction of Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne, met with student representatives including former USG president P.J. Kim '01 and USG president Joe Kochan '02 to discuss the atmosphere of the future installation.

They decided to break the tradition of an exclusive ceremony attended only by members of the academic world and dignitaries. Instead, they chose to coordinate a more public ceremony open to all students, faculty, staff and alumni.

"If we made it an installation open primarily to dignitaries, they become the focus," Tilghman said. "I had a strong bias for this to be a Princeton focused event."

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One of the biggest concerns for the ceremonies was the state of the front green of Nassau Hall after weeks of walkway construction throughout the summer. Because of the efforts of the University grounds crew, the area now looks presentable.

"Many people say God went to Princeton," Wright said. "Well, He and the grounds crew were hard at work to make the area look the way it does."

Other than members of the University community, those invited include the heads of the other Ivy League universities, members of various New Jersey state institutions and members of well-known alumni organizations.

Tilghman also personally extended an invitation to a number of people who have had a special influence on her throughout her life. Members of her family, friends from high school, college and the Peace Corp, several honorary University alumni, Harold Varmis, who is head of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and Bruce Alberts, who is president of the National Academy of the Sciences, will be in attendance.