Tilghman leads panel on diversity

President Tilghman led a presidential panel at a forum on academic diversity Tuesday in Washington, D.C. The panel — which included six other university presidents, among them Lee Bollinger of Columbia and Lawrence Summers of Harvard — addressed "The Impact of Diversity on the Academy."

Three other panels, each made up of seven University presidents, prepared reports on undergraduate preparation, graduate education and collaboration promoting diversity in academia.

The event was organized by The Leadership Alliance, a consortium of 29 universities and colleges that advocates the inclusion of underrepresented groups in education.

The U.S Census Bureau projects that by the year 2050, Caucasians "will be the barest of majorities of Americans," according to a summary of the presidents' statements. This statistic has encouraged university leaders from across the country to rethink the way their faculty will be able to serve an increasingly diverse student population.

"Our focus is how to encourage underrepresented minorities to consider careers in the academy," Tilghman said in an interview. "The real purpose [of the forum] was to sort of see where we are, and to see whether there are new things that we can be doing and just compare notes."

Panelists focused the greater part of their discussion on diversity in science, engineering and medicine. One of the ways that Tilghman said she hopes to facilitate greater diversity at the University is to bring students from historically black colleges to participate in summer research opportunities.

"We were all very interested in the summer research program, so we are going to continue to think about how to do this in a very effective way," Tilghman said.

The panel expressed the need for both gender and ethnic diversity. Personal statements from the presidents concurred that a university must maintain a diverse faculty to attract a diverse student body.

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"As we look to the next generation of scientists, engineers, humanists and social scientists to study and teach at our universities and colleges, we need to recruit and develop the talents of the entire population of young men and women," according to a summary of the presidents' statements.

"If we do not do so," the statement said, "we will be looking to a smaller and smaller talent pool, which will inevitably lower the quality of our scholars and scientists."

Tilghman emphasized the role of research universities in increasing diversity.

"It is clear, and Princeton is not alone in this ... [that] at research universities we have a great deal of work to do," Tilghman said.

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This was the first meeting of the group since Tilghman became president in 2001, and she said she found it "tremendously useful."

She acknowledged, however, that presidents can be constrained by their roles as public figures.

"It is certainly the case that when university presidents speak in public they are not speaking as individuals, particularly when it directly relates to the business of the university," Tilghman said. "So one has to understand that in instances where your own private views differ from the university's, you have to be very cautious."