Q&A: Anthony Grafton

Anthony Grafton, the Henry Putnam University Professor of History, founded the freshman seminar program and is the chair of the Council of the Humanities. He researches renaissance and reformation history as well as historiography.

Grafton will be teaching HUM216, HUM217 and ECS331/COM341 this semester. Next semester he will be on leave in Rome for research.

'Prince' reporter Miriam Bocarsly sat down with Grafton earlier this week to talk about his new role in the Phi Beta Kappa Society and his other activities on campus.

'Prince': You were recently elected to the Senate of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Describe the role and purpose of the society.

Grafton: Phi Beta Kappa is a wonderfully quaint organization that exists to honor the best students across America. Colleges and universities can apply to have a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and have to offer a certain quality and level of instruction. They cannot pay the football coach or the athletic director more than the president of the college.

Unfortunately we have a lot of chapters at schools which do. It is meant to honor academic achievement. You can normally admit 10 percent of the graduating class at a bigger school, and up to 15 percent at a smaller college. That is the chief thing that Phi Beta Kappa does. People who are admitted to Phi Beta Kappa get to learn a secret handshake, they get a key and they get to have this certain token of their accomplishments.

P: In what way would you like to see the Princeton chapter grow?

G: The only thing is that the society has no budget. It's peculiar at Princeton because we are in the land where there is a budget for everything. We do a very nice reception for the graduating seniors. But that is a new thing, and it needs to be squeezed in very early on class day. When I was a visiting lecturer, I went to these very impressive public ceremonies at other colleges where Phi Beta Kappa is a big deal, and the faculty all attend in academic robes.

P: Princeton is a very traditional university. Why don't we embrace the tradition of Phi Beta Kappa?

G: We give traditional vibes, but in fact the university is changing over and over again. We say we are traditional, but we don't have the rich range of tradition that any other old school has. A lot of what we have which is considered traditional is vested in the [eating] clubs and carried on by students.

Phi Beta Kappa was a much bigger deal, and I hope that it will find a much bigger place here on campus.

The other thing I like about Phi Beta Kappa is that it recognizes someone who isn't normally commended: It comments on the complete performance of the student. All the honors here, except for the prizes that go to the very top person of the class, are very departmentalized and only recognize the discipline of your major. Phi Beta Kappa recognizes people who have really pushed to the limits of their energy and ability in every course they have taken.

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P: What improvements would you like to see at the national level of Phi Beta Kappa?

G: We publish one of the best quarterly magazines in America, The American Scholar, which is a general literary and scholarly magazine with essays, poems and book reviews. I'm on the editorial board, and we work with the editor to reshape the magazine and bring it more up to date and locate more young writers . . . Otherwise, I am going to wait and see what needs to be done.

I have not yet been to a meeting. The current president of Phi Beta Kappa was a Princeton graduate and I am going to take pride in working under and with a former student.

P: You also serve as chair on the Council of Humanities. What is the role of the council at Princeton?

G: The Council of the Humanities at Princeton is a large but little known group on campus and has no counterpart at any other university . . . Over the last 50 years it has become the main council for the humanities and arts at Princeton. The council includes all the arts at 185 Nassau in addition to all the humanities. We run the Ferris journalism program and bring six to eight well-known journalists to teach each year.

P: You were a key component in the formation of the freshman seminar program. What was your role?

G: I founded that program in 1986. We founded them in the hope of making freshman year more exciting. When I got here in '75, there were of course dinosaurs teaching here and freshman year was mostly large lectures and precepts. And, we found that freshman came in very eager and when they found that they were in big classes and had little contact with faculty were loosing their academic excitement.

P: Are professors generally enthusiastic about the freshman seminar program?

G: In my experience, just about uniformly, yes. Freshmen are still enthusiastic, they have not yet become cynical and they have not yet discovered that they do not have to do the readings. Freshmen work hard and are very intense.

P: What is your professional area of interest?

G: I am a renaissance person. But I am specifically interested in how people read the original Latin. So I started off in classics and became a historian a little later on. Right now I am working on a project from the 4th century AD, which is pretty fun. The most exciting thing I am doing right now is a study of the library of the Christian Diocese of Caesura Palestine of the 3rd and 4th century. I am putting together almost archeological bits of evidence to study.

P: You are involved in many committees on campus. What is it that you enjoy about serving on these comities?

G: In a small school, you can actually make a difference if you are willing to put in the time. This is one of the big differences between Princeton and Harvard. Harvard is such an amazing institution, and maybe the president can have a real impact, but it is hard for anyone else to have a big impact. Whereas here, an incredibly small place, we are blessed with such great resources and one person can actually make a difference.

For example, one thing I work to do is stage a symposium for high school seniors and through it are actually trying to push the student body a little bit by attracting students to programs like 185 Nassau. It is a very prestigious program, and seems to be working. More than half the attendants from last year will be attending Princeton this year.

We have not yet seen a visible change in the freshman class, but more people are coming in hoping to major in humanities. It will be interesting to see in a few years the true impact of the program. I am hoping that some of the smaller departments will become major departments as a result of this program. They are really excellent departments with wonderful faculty and students need to know they are available. Princeton students generally major in the same four things, and I would like to see more diversity.

P: With so many obligations, do you feel like you can balance so many committees and all your professor obligations?

G: I feel like it cuts into my research time. But I try to keep the pot bubbling. I will be taking leave the spring semester and doing research in Rome. I find that I am writing a lot more memos now than anything else. And I think you need to approach it with a sense of humor. It's a busy life.