Former University President Robert Goheen '40 dies

Former University President Robert Goheen ’40, who steered Princeton through the tumult of the 1960s and oversaw dramatic changes, including the implementation of coeducation, died of heart failure yesterday morning at the University Medical Center at Princeton. He was 88.

Widely regarded as Princeton’s most influential president since Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, Goheen oversaw the first capital campaign and the largest campus expansion in the University’s history. He also guided the institution through the surging social movements of the 1960s and the turmoil surrounding the Vietnam War.

“I think he will indeed go down in history as one of Princeton’s greatest presidents, as one of its most important leaders,” President Tilghman said yesterday of her late predecessor. “He took the University through one of its most difficult times, and we came out of it a stronger institution thanks to his visionary leadership.”

Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel, who joined the Princeton faculty in 1969, toward the end of Goheen’s presidency, said in an e-mail that Goheen was a model Princetonian who exemplified the qualities of service to community and country.

“I loved and admired Bob Goheen more than I can possibly describe in a few words,” she said. “Bob Goheen embodied brilliance, vision, integrity, decency, humility, and grace.”

One of Malkiel’s colleagues in the late ’60s was sociology professor emeritus Suzanne Keller, who joined Princeton’s faculty in 1968 and would later become the first tenured woman on the faculty.

“He had a powerful presence but at the same time exuded compassion and calm,” she said of Goheen. “He was a leader who, in a time of great dissention, really held the University together. It was a very difficult time, and he somehow mastered it. He was a lovely man who made a huge impact on Princeton.”

Former University President William Bowen GS ’58, who served as provost under Goheen for five years before succeeding him as president, said Goheen will be remembered for much more than his successful initiatives while in office.

“What was so remarkable was the character of the man,” Bowen said. “People disagreed with him, and he expected them to. But no one disrespected him. Everyone knew this was a person of unimpeachable integrity. It was really powerful in holding Princeton together during those difficult days.”

During Goheen’s tenure, Princeton constructed or acquired 38 buildings, increasing the University’s indoor square footage by 80 percent. The physical expansion was paralleled by a similar increase in the University’s financial resources. The annual budget grew from roughly $20 million to $80 million during the Goheen era, and contributions to Annual Giving doubled. The faculty grew from less than 500 to more than 700, maintaining a low student-teacher ratio even as the undergraduate student body grew from just under 3,000 to almost 4,000. The Graduate School also expanded, doubling in enrollment under Goheen’s watch.

“He was really the architect of the modern Princeton,” Bowen said. “He did so many things that were so fundamentally important. The success of the University today, its stature in the world, owes more to him than anyone else. Those who are here now owe far more to him than they will ever know.”

Tilghman said Goheen’s leadership during the turbulent years of his tenure was similar to Abraham Lincoln’s management of the American Civil War.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“Lincoln’s greatness was partly due to the fact he was so challenged in his time,” Tilghman said. “And I think the same could be said about Bob. He lived during an extraordinary time, and he took advantage of that opportunity.”

University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69, who covered the president’s office as a reporter for The Daily Princetonian, said that Goheen is one of the four most influential presidents in Princeton’s history.

“I would put him in the category with the presidencies of [John] Witherspoon, [James] McCosh and [Woodrow] Wilson, who each in their own way was responsible for transforming Princeton,” he said. “He really did transform Princeton into an institution with much greater stature and with much more diversity than it had before. He does deserve to be ranked with presidents that have had that kind of transformative effect on the University.”

Annalyn Swan ’73, a member of the second coeducational undergraduate class, wrote in an e-mail that Goheen reminded her of a former Princetonian as well.

“Goheen was through and through a gentleman scholar,” Swan, a ‘Prince’ trustee, said. “He set a wonderful tone for the campus — one of reflection and seriousness. He put me in mind of what I assumed Woodrow Wilson was like when he was president of Princeton.”

Greg Conderacci ’71, also a ‘Prince’ trustee, said there was an irony to Goheen’s tenure in office in that “a man who was a classics scholar, steeped in antiquity, would be the one who led Princeton through these incredible times of change and tumult.”

“It was a time of unprecedented unrest,” Conderacci said. “He had an enormous stabilizing and calming influence through the whole period. He was just an incredible human being.”

Goheen is survived by his wife, Margaret, of 66 years, as well as their six children, 18 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Tilghman said the family is preparing for a private burial and that a public memorial service will be held in the University Chapel sometime this spring.