Oxman '67 named chairman of trustees' executive committee

The Board of Trustees has chosen Stephen Oxman '67 as the new chair of its executive committee, making him the highest-ranking member of the University's governing body after President Tilghman.

Oxman, a trustee since 2002, replaces Robert Rawson '66, who stepped down on July 1 after 13 years as chairman and 20 years on the board.

"I'm very pleased to take on this role," Oxman said in an interview before the announcement of his appointment in June. "I think Bob has done a magnificent job ... I feel like I have very large shoes to fill."

In an email, Tilghman said, "Mr. Oxman was chosen for many reasons, but primarily because of his very good judgment, his ability to listen and represent the views of his colleagues on the board and his effectiveness as a trustee."

Oxman's service to the University dates back to his tenure as president of the undergraduate student body in 1966, when he gained attention for his campaign against the bicker process.

The 40-member Board of Trustees is responsible for the overall direction of the University. The members have review and approval powers for all major policies, and they must approve the University's operating and capital budgets. As chair of the executive committee, Oxman will lead a small group of senior trustees who work with the administration.

Unlike some peer institutions, Princeton does not have a chair of the board. As president, Tilghman presides over board meetings and sets the agenda jointly with the chair of the executive committee.

Oxman, whose three children graduated from Princeton, comes to the post with a long record of academic and professional achievement.

He received the Pyne Prize, the University's top academic honor, before going on to Yale Law School, where he edited the Yale Law Journal. After receiving his J.D., he won a Rhodes scholarship and earned a doctorate at Oxford.

Currently a senior adviser at Morgan Stanley, Oxman has spent most of his career in law, banking and investments. He served as assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs during the administration of President Clinton, a Yale and Oxford classmate and friend.

As a trustee, Oxman chaired a special committee responsible for reviewing the structure of the board. He has also served as a member of the Robertson Foundation Board at a particularly contentious time: the descendents of original donors Charles '26 and Marie Robertson are suing the University for misuse of the endowment.

"He was put into positions that tested very quickly his style and his judgment," said Tom Wright '62, former secretary of the University.

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Peter Wendell '72, who serves alongside Oxman on the Robertson board and was named clerk of the trustees in June, agreed. "I think President Tilghman had a strong sense of Steve from our work together on Robertson," he said.

"He has been in the center of the effort to work through the mess of the Robertson Foundation," Wright added. "Each time he would stand up in the board meeting and report on that, you could see that the rest of the board was just gaining a tremendous sense of confidence [in him]."

Tilghman and Oxman "have come to a very high level of mutual respect and trust," Wright said.

'Similar gravitas'

Since the position of executive committee chair has changed hands only three times in the past 35 years, a new appointment typically signals a generational shift. But that's not the case with Oxman, who graduated within a year of his predecessor.

"It's a mistake to think that there's a shift or change between [Oxman] and Rawson," Wright said. "There's a kind of similar gravitas to the two of them."

Paul Wythes '55, a former vice chair of the board, agreed that Oxman and Rawson share many qualities. "I think they're both very thoughtful," he said. "They're good listeners. They don't just jump at something before listening to different sides of the issue."

In 2000, Wythes chaired the committee that authored a report calling for a 500-student increase in the size of the undergraduate population and the construction of a sixth residential college. That college — Whitman College — will inaugurate a new era in student life at Princeton, a milestone Oxman enthusiastically noted in his interview.

"I think it's a very creative approach, and we'll be moving forward with it in a very open-minded way and hope that it can be structured in a way that's constructive for all concerned," Oxman said.

He declined to discuss further details about his plans as chair, saying doing so would be "premature."

Oxman's approach to the four-year colleges has won praise from Tilghman, who said in an email that she and Oxman are "very much in agreement" on the plan's merit.

Though Oxman's tenure as chair will likely be shorter than Rawson's — he was chosen over several younger candidates — his extensive career experience will prove helpful to the University, Wright said. "Somebody with diplomatic, investment and legal skills is not a bad mix."

Opposition to Bicker

As an undergraduate in the 1960s, Oxman made a name for himself by campaigning for an alternative to the eating clubs' then-universal bicker system.

As president of the Undergraduate Governing Council (UGC) — the predecessor to today's USG — Oxman formed the "Bicker Study Committee" to examine alternative methods of admitting sophomores to the Prospect Avenue clubs.

A document from the Princeton University Eating Club Records described the committee's work and its aftermath as an "uprising" against Bicker.

The UGC committee's report, titled "Report on Bicker and Proposals for Change" and subsequently dubbed the "Oxman proposal," called for assignment of students to clubs based on student preferences, with students' names prioritized randomly — a system similar to the sign-in process employed by some clubs today.

The committee's report concluded that Bicker is "not only harmful per se, but unnecessary for the continued functioning of clubs as social institutions."

The report said that Bicker — decried as "virtually compulsory" because of a lack of social alternatives — imposed "a false hierarchy on Princeton social life" and erected "artificial barriers among its students," according to an account in Alexander Leitch's history of Princeton.

A 1966 'Prince' article said the Oxman proposal "would replace the process with the assignment of small groups or individual sophomores to clubs after each group or individual had listed three club preferences."

"After random ordering of priority of groups, each would be assigned to one of its preferred clubs as long as space remained," the 'Prince' reported.

Oxman then called Bicker "a hoax, for it deludes the sophomore into believing that a group can select one's friends rather than the person himself."

But the trustees interviewed said they did not consider Oxman's opposition to Bicker as an undergraduate when evaluating him for the chair's position.

"The environment he was reacting to was the same environment when I was there, where everyone was forced to Bicker," Wendell said. "There are now a fair amount of alternatives and there're going to be even more. I think this wasn't on anyone's radar screen."

Oxman's plan faced stiff opposition from several eating clubs, including Cap and Gown — his own club — which voted 53-8 against adopting it.

In his interview, Oxman emphasized that today's club system is much more diverse than the one he knew as a student in the 1960s.

"A variety of alternatives are much more available now than they were then," he said. "The relationship between the clubs and the University is a much more complementary one now ... I view it as what I'd call the constructive development of various alternatives."