Provost Amy Gutmann, who has been President Tilghman's second-in-command for two-and-a-half years, will leave the University on June 30 to become the eighth president of the University of Pennsylvania, capping a 28-year Princeton career.
Tilghman is scrambling to find a replacement to serve as her chief academic and budget officer as Gutmann finalizes her work here and makes plans for Penn.
Gutmann's priorities for Penn include raising the profile of its undergraduate college and growing its endowment, which is a third the size of Princeton's despite Penn enrollment being five times as large, she said.
Because of Penn's strong graduate schools, "the undergraduate college can tend to be overshadowed," Gutmann said the day the announcement was made in an interview at her Nassau Hall office. "But when I walk around at Penn, it's clear that the undergrads are central to Penn as a university. They're central to Penn's mission, so I want to make that clear in the years to come."
Explaining why endowment growth is important, Gutmann said that Penn currently pays for a large amount of its financial aid out of its operating budget.
"One of my goals will be to build up the endowment" so it is more frequently the source of financial aid, she said. "We wouldn't want Princeton to be one of the only places that's able to recruit superb students and give them full financial aid. Penn is just as committed to that as Princeton is."
The announcement that Gutmann was nominated to replace Judith Rodin as Penn president — the first time an Ivy-League school has appointed consecutive female presidents — officially came on Jan. 22 from the Penn board of trustees.
Princeton, Penn and Brown are the only Ivy League institutions with female presidents.
The search for number two
University officials said they expected that Tilghman would name a successor to Gutmann sometime this semester, with the appointee likely already here at Princeton.
On the day of the announcement, Tilghman said in an email that Gutmann's departure represents a "great loss" for the University and that she will initiate "conversations with faculty and staff in the next several weeks" about who would be a good candidate.
"It is very likely that it will be a member of the faculty," said Robert Durkee '69, vice president and secretary. He added that the University Board of Trustees, which held a routine meeting the weekend after the announcement was made, would discuss the matter.
Though several trustees confirmed that Tilghman raised the issue of Gutmann's departure at their meeting, they refused to discuss details of their meeting.
One trustee reported that Tilghman "said pretty much the same thing to us," referring to the President's comments that she would be initiating "conversations with faculty and staff" in the coming weeks.
The trustee and others added that "no names were brought up at the meeting."
Gutmann and her two predecessors — Jeremiah Ostriker and Hugo Sonnenschein — were all named provost after spending time on the University's faculty.
Though officials said the position could be filled by an outsider, Durkee said that "it would be wonderful to have someone [on the faculty] come up and say that this is something I would like to do."
Joann Mitchell, vice provost for administration, said faculty members would begin nominating each, noting that it "would not be unusual for someone to nominate them self" for the post.
Senior University officials declined to discuss the names of potential candidates saying that the search process must be "confidential" so that faculty and staff "can come forward and share their views very candidly."
However, Durkee did confirm that Tilghman has already begun "to have conversations with some of her senior colleagues in the administration and members of the faculty."
This will not be the first time Gutmann has been considered for a major university presidency. Ironically, she was considered as a candidate to replace former Princeton provost Neil Rudenstine '56 when he was retiring from the Harvard presidency in 2001.
Indeed, Gutmann continues a tradition in the Provost's Office of moving into the top job at other universities.
Since the 1970s, six other Princeton administrators have left the University to lead other institutions: Francis Hackney to Tulane University, then Penn; Rudenstine to Harvard; Janet Holmgren to Mills College; Sonnenschein to the University of Chicago; Ruth Simmons to Smith College, then Brown; and Georgia Nugent '73 to Kenyon College.
In 1972, Princeton's own William Bowen was elected the University's president while serving as provost.
Gutmann's exit represents the third in a string of senior-officer departures in just a few months. Vice President for Administration Charles Kalmbach '68 and Tom Wright '62, the former vice president and secretary, left Princeton in December.
But Tilghman said she is not worried by her senior deputies' departures.
"I am not concerned about the fact that there will be this amount of change," she said. "This happened right after I became president, and the University has shown that it can go from strength to strength."
Other choices, quick decision
The Penn presidential search committee arrived at its decision almost exactly four months after beginning its work — a remarkably short time considering most presidential searches last over a year.
The Daily Pennsylvanian reported that the other candidates for the Penn top-job included current U.S. National Security Advisor and former Stanford provost Condoleezza Rice; Drew Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard; and Nancy Cantor, chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
But a top Penn official questioned the report.
"Some of the people on that list are wrong; it is unverified information," said Ron Ozio, media relations director at Penn. He declined to comment on who exactly the candidates were.
Between Penn and Princeton
Gutmann has virtually no direct ties to Penn. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard-Radcliffe College in 1971 and earned her masters from the London School of Economics in 1972 and Ph.D. from Harvard in 1976.
For the next six months, Gutmann must balance her busy schedule as Princeton provost while learning about the unique challenges facing Penn.
"I'm not going to try and make Penn into Princeton anymore than I would try and make Princeton into Penn," she said. "They're two distinct educational institutions sharing the common goal of excellence in teaching, research, and public service."
She added that Penn's broader range of academic programs — including business, medical and education schools — "are very appealing to me because they have great potential to speak to the problems of our society and the world."
Gutmann said she was very proud of accomplishments while at Princeton, in particular the recruitment of new deans and vice provosts, and the establishment of two new major research centers, one for international and regional studies and one for material sciences.
She added that her work as provost will go on "full steam ahead." Her current projects include Whitman College, the new science library and the four-year residential college system.
"As I've said to everybody at Penn, I have a day job, and they have to realize that," she said. "I'll do my best to ensure that there's a very smooth transition."
That said, Gutmann said she leaves with a heavy heart and much nostalgia.
"You know, [my Princeton interview] was my first job interview. It was for a position as an assistant professor," she said. "I don't want to think about leaving until June 30 comes."
"The worst part of my leaving is leaving all of my friends here. I give myself consolation by saying that I'm moving just down the road," Gutmann said. "It's impossible to leave Princeton without feeling terrible about leaving Princeton. It's a magical place."
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