Valuing the many women of Princeton

Campus controversies have a short shelf life. Every year, a new class of students enters who do not know that life at Princeton could be different than they find it. When my class came to Princeton, the campus controversy was about President Tilghman's appointments of women. Two years ago, in response to that controversy, I wrote a column in this newspaper defending the appointment of Dean of Admissions Janet Rapelye. The Class of 2009 will not think to question Dean Rapelye's resume. They will know her only as the woman who invited them to Princeton, the woman who told them "Yes!" This was the kind of progress my friends and I envisioned when we debated gender-neutral hiring over dining hall dinners. We believed that qualification was all that ought to count, that Princeton's new deans were unquestionably qualified. We believed that it made no difference whether an administrator was a man or a woman.

We were wrong. Gender does make a difference.

The women of Princeton's faculty and administration were no doubt hired regardless of their gender, despite the railings of alumni and conservative students who sometimes seem to believe that finding talented women in academia is as improbable as finding water in a desert. These women are at the height of their fields. If they were men, their accomplishments and contributions would be just as impressive. But it does not serve us to pretend that what women and men bring to the table once they have been hired is exactly the same. Our university is richer for the women on the faculty and in the administration, both because of their individual talents and because of the changes they have brought to a university with a decidedly male history.

The difference these women have made in the lives of my friends and classmates is remarkable. When we did not know where to turn to express concern about sexual assault at Princeton, we were not afraid to talk to Tilghman. We were sure that she would understand the problem and guide us in our search for solutions.

When the qualifications of female scientists were called into question, aspiring biologists, chemists and engineers asked their female professors and the dean of the engineering school how they had gone about overcoming obstacles to pursue Ph.D.'s and to open their own laboratories.

When female classmates wondered if they should join mostly male classes on international relations or diplomacy, they needed only to look to the Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, who has studied both, and heed her advice that female leaders must be well versed in the issues of the day.

When the campus women's group, of which I once served as president, seeks to hold discussions on contemporary women's issues, we are overwhelmed by enthusiasm and support from women in every department and office on campus.

The women of Princeton have helped to define my college experience as well, from the alumnae for whom I have worked to the professors under whom I have studied. When I began searching for an adviser to supervise my senior thesis on work-family balance, often considered a "women's issue," I went to the Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, an academic, author and mother of two. Though Dean Slaughter is a scholar of international law and international relations, she speaks often about work and family. Some contend that studying families is less serious than studying terrorism or the trade deficit, but Dean Slaughter convinced me that my research merited her time and my own. When people ask me what makes Princeton special, I tell them this story.

As I get closer to graduation, I am increasingly aware of how lucky I am to have been an undergraduate here, a fact that owes as much to the men of this university as to the women. But this is a tremendous time and place to be a woman. The contributions of female faculty and administrators go far beyond the fact that they are women, certainly. Individually, they are kind, talented, engaging and dynamic. But they bring a different perspective to Princeton because of their gender: interests in new ideas, understandings of obstacles, ways of thinking about their disciplines. For all the time we spend paying lip service to diversity, it turns out to be true that people with different characteristics — and different genders — enrich a community.

The campus controversy over appointments seems to have died down. The incoming freshmen will likely never know about the heated debates over Tilghman's appointments. The Class of 2009 will soon learn, however, just how lucky they are to share their college years with the women of Princeton. Katherine Reilly is a Wilson School major from Short Hills, N.J. She can be reached at kcreilly@princeton.edu.