Professors gone wild — or not exactly

What were our professors like before they put on rumpled oxford shirts and perched their reading glasses atop their noses? As we pick out our dresses and tuxedos, and buy that obligatory flask of gin for our date, it's hard not to wonder whether our professors ever nervously pinned a corsage to their date's dress or double checked to make sure their taffeta skirt wasn't folded into their pantyhose.

Intrigued, I started out trying to compile professors' recollections of their own undergraduate experiences at formal events — and even houseparties, for the Princeton alums. I thought they must surely have some good stories, perhaps even pictures of themselves with long, finely coifed hair or stilettos.

I sent out requests, and waited for replies that would hopefully involve tales of embarrassingly torn tuxedos or beer fights or perhaps the misplacement of an unfortunate date. At the very least, I expected that they would have fond — or not so fond — memories of their formal events.

It turned out I was wrong.

The first reply I received set the stage for the others to come:

"Alas, I'm no help. They were not an event that printed a deep circuit. The persistence of memory is not persistent with respect to houseparties," Professor John McPhee '53 replied.

I figured that his response was just a fluke. Once again, I was wrong.

"Believe it or not, I've never been involved in houseparties or similar events." — Carol Rigolot, Executive Director of the Council of Humanities.

"I draw a complete blank." — Anthony Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Chair of the Council of the Humanities.

"Thanks for the invitation, but I'm afraid I had a serious deficit in formal houseparties. I was an undergraduate at Dartmouth before coeducation (if you can imagine such a thing). I don't recall anything formal. And as for my fraternity, the less said the better." — Larry Danson, Professor of English.

"Sad to say, I don't think I attended a single formal event at college. Remember — I was in college in the '60s and 'formals' were considered decidedly 'uncool,' " — President Tilghman.

"Sorry, but I don't have anything for you." — John Gager, William H. Danforth Professor of Religion.

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"I have mainly been aware of a lot of elegant clothes and very loud music played very late into the night!" — John Fleming, Louis W. Fairchild '24 Professor of English and Comparative Literature.

What conclusions could I draw from these responses to help illuminate the meaning of houseparties for myself and the rest of my Princeton brethren? That extremely intelligent and successful people do not usually participate in formal events and, if they do, they do not find them important enough to remember?

I feel that this was perhaps too broad a conclusion to draw from the replies of half a dozen Princeton professors, despite their eminence. I took these responses as proof that, regardless of our experiences this weekend at houseparties or elsewhere, life does indeed go on after the open bars have closed and we will march — or stagger — bravely on into reading week and beyond.