Internationalizing Princeton

In a continuation of the University's efforts to "internationalize" Princeton into "an American university with a broad international vision," President Tilghman has recently appointed a high-profile President's Advisory Committee on Internationalization charged with advising the University on how to "best respond to challenges and opportunities in the international arena."

We welcome this as a step forward toward making Princeton a truly world-class institution, in which the administration has sought to go beyond encouraging study abroad, admitting a higher percentage of international students and strengthening our international relations faculty, to developing University-level strategic priorities and strengthening the University's programs, relationships and reputation worldwide.

In particular, among the issues that Tilghman has asked the Committee to look into, we feel that two points are worth careful consideration. First is the University's entering into partnerships with research and educational institutions overseas, including the establishment and operation of facilities outside the United States. On the one hand, in maintaining Princeton's strengths in the sciences and engineering, the University should see to it that it does not miss collaborative opportunities with growing centers of research and technology such as the Indian Institutes of Technology.

On the other hand, in the social sciences and humanities, especially in area studies, the University should evaluate existing forms of international exchange and whether strengthened University-level relationships with counterparts abroad would allow it to benefit directly from local insights and scholarship and facilitate further academic cross-fertilization.

Second, it is important that the University effectively promote its reputation abroad, where it is often significantly less well known than its peer institutions Harvard, Yale and Stanford because of its small size and lack of professional schools. While we do not see reputation as important for the sake of reputation itself, it does play a role in attracting the brightest students from overseas who may be relying on a university's international reputation in the application process in the absence of resources that allow them to fully gauge the differences between Princeton and other universities.

As much as the University is consistently ranked at the top of the U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges list, this ranking alone is not a reason to be complacent as there are other rankings that may be more influential abroad, such as the Times Higher Educational Supplement's World University Ranking or Shanghai Jiaotong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities, in which the University does not fare as well.

Amid an "internationalization" movement that looks outward to the world, we urge the administration not to be distracted from domestic and social concerns that are of pressing importance to the University community. Much work remains to be done in admissions outreach to low-income communities and schools in the United States that have traditionally seen Princeton as out of reach; recent events on the social scene have highlighted the social problems on campus and the future of the four-year residential colleges and remain extremely important issues to be tackled.

After all, the international promotion of Princeton must be solidly backed up with its academic strengths as well as a cohesive and diverse student community back in New Jersey. Otherwise, efforts to "go global" are likely to be undermined by insufficient attention to problems closer to home.