President Goheen and me: Princeton's living history

One of the pleasures of the Princeton experience is never knowing when or where you might happen upon a piece of history. The richness of the past may be found in the architecture of a particular building or in a tattered old text on a shelf in Firestone. Sometimes, if you're lucky, the past presents itself as living history.

Last Sunday, the morning after my twenty-first birthday, I roused myself from bed at an all-too-early hour to join my parents at Chapel services. (They had come to town to help me celebrate the fact that I'm now — in the eyes of the law, though not in the eyes of those who know me — a man.)

My mother, father and I slid into a pew close to the front and settled in for an hour of peaceful reflection. As the service was about to begin, my father noticed a man sitting across the aisle from us. He was an older fellow, wearing a suit and bowtie, amid clusters of people in khakis and open-collared shirts. His grey hair was combed traditionally to the side, and thick-rimmed spectacles were perched on his nose. My father, who once roamed this campus as a student, recognized the gentleman as Robert Goheen.

I perked up upon hearing the name but still needed my father to fill in some of the details.

In the late 1930s, Robert F. Goheen was a student at Princeton. After graduating in the Class of 1940, he served in World War II, before returning to Princeton to complete his doctoral degree and join the faculty in the classics department.

In 1957, Goheen, as an assistant professor, was named Princeton's 16th president. At the time of his inauguration, he was 37 years old, making him the youngest president in the University's history. He served in that position for 15 years, steering the school through enormous growth and change: a quadrupled budget; a transition to coeducation; and a tumultuous political atmosphere during the Vietnam War years. Bill Bradley '65, Steve Forbes '70 and future Princeton president Harold Shapiro GS '64 were all students while President Goheen was at the helm.

Following his tenure as president, Mr. Goheen served as the U.S. Ambassador to India. He has been, by any measure, a great Princetonian.

During Chapel service, I observed Mr. Goheen from time to time. I couldn't help thinking that there was something strange about the fact that I could sit 15 feet away from a defining leader of Princeton in the 20th century and not recognize him. Even at a place like Princeton, which values and instills a sense of history and tradition, our institutional memory inevitably fades.

My father said he wanted to greet Mr. Goheen following the service. However, the former President quietly slipped away before communion, his departure as inconspicuous as his presence had been.

In a 1961 baccalaureate address to the students, President Goheen said, "If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the University has failed you." Certainly, one aim of the University is to teach students to continually question who they are and where they are headed. But I also think the University can serve as an anchoring force, tying us to a past that, upon graduating, all Princetonians share.

My chapel encounter with Mr. Goheen made me wonder: What is our role in preserving our shared Princeton experience?

I'm not sure when or where I'll see Mr. Goheen again. But I hope I do — and you can bet I'll recognize him this time. P.G. Sittenfeld is an English major from Cincinnati, Ohio. He can be reached at pg@princeton.edu.