Government liaison Wells announces plan to retire

Nan Wells, a pioneer in politicking for colleges and universities, has announced that she will retire as the University's director of government affairs in December.

As the founding director of the the University's Office of Government Affairs in Washington, Wells has played a significant role in affecting higher education policy on Capitol Hill.

When the office was created in 1979, involvement in government legislation was rare among institutions of higher education.

"When I came to Princeton, they had not had anyone doing government relations," Wells said. "I asked how they had set their priorities for government relations, and they said they called Harvard [University]."

Though faculty and administrators from Harvard had traveled to Washington to lobby for the school's concerns, Princeton was the first Ivy League university to create a formal government affairs office.

Reflecting on her tenure at the University, Wells said her most important accomplishments have been establishing and maintaining support for the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, increasing funding at the National Science Foundation and sustaining the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"As the only director our government affairs office has ever had, Nan has played a central role in Princeton's multifaceted relationships with the federal government for more than two decades," Vice President of Public Affairs Robert Durkee '69 said in a statement.

"She has made countless friends for Princeton and has represented the University on a broad range of issues."

However, there have been some obstacles Wells and her colleagues could not overcome.

Though Princeton with the help of other universities was able to rally support to save the National Endowment for the Humanities several years ago, funds for the humanities have been cut deeply.

In addition, she said, efforts to restore the national fusion budget about five years ago were not successful.

Post-retirement plans

Though she will retire in December, Wells will remain in Washington as a senior consultant in government affairs for the University until the end of 2003.

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She said the major reason she decided to retire is to spend more time with her daughter who will soon graduate from high school.

While working for the University, Wells found not only a career but also a family.

Her husband was an anthropology professor at the University when they met in 1976.

The couple sought help from the Wilson School when they wanted to adopt a daughter from Russia.

When the adoption the pair had hoped for appeared to be failing, Wells wrote an appeal to the Russian government.

Graduate students at the Wilson School then translated the note into Russian and typed the letter in the Cyrillic alphabet.

"Within 24 hours, we had a letter to the Russian government in Cyrillic," Wells said. "They helped me lobby, and for that I'm really grateful."

Before coming to Princeton, Wells was a legislative assistant for the State University of New York for three years and director of an office of federal programs for state colleges and universities for five years.

She received a B.S. in zoology and political science from the University of Kentucky in 1961 and an M.S. in zoology from the University of Michigan in 1963.

Search for a successor

Though the position demands similar experience in government policy, Wells said a successor could also be someone involved in the campus.

"It should be someone who knows Washington or knows the campus," she said, "or ideally someone who knows both."

A search committee for her successor will begin soon, according to a University press release.

While the committee will consider candidates both within and outside the University, a successor could be one of her colleagues in the government affairs office, Wells said.

The associate director is Joe Fiordaliso, who was a senior policy officer for Sen. Robert Torricelli before joining the office eight months ago.

Some of the major issues a successor will face are obtaining adequate funding for higher education programs under a constrained budget and protecting international students' privacy amid tighter regulation of immigration procedures, Wells said.

In addition, because Wells was one of the first University administrators on Capitol Hill, the influence of higher education in legislation could change dramatically after she leaves.

"I think it's interesting to consider," Fiordaliso said, "How will her leaving change the face of government affairs for colleges and universities?"

The Office of Government Affairs will be extremely important in affecting these issues as well as other legislative issues in future years, Wells said.

"I think it's critical now if not to influence [government affairs], certainly to be aware of them," she said. "I think a major university like Princeton wants to be involved in the decisions made by the government."