“It had always been my stated objective that I did not want to retire as president; I wanted to retire as a faculty member,” Shapiro said in an interview at his only slightly smaller office in Wallace Hall, which he occupies as a Wilson School professor. “When I turned 65, I thought to myself, ‘You better get on with it.’ In my judgment, the University was in good shape at the time, so I thought it was the right moment to go back to teaching.”
Shapiro’s connections to the University run deep. He has seen — and eventually shaped — change at Princeton for nearly five decades. He was a graduate student in the economics department in the 1960s, before leaving for the University of Michigan to launch his academic career. After rising to become Michigan’s provost and president, he returned to Princeton as its president in 1987.
Since stepping down in 2001, he has stayed involved in academic life at the University while expanding his influence in policy discussions at the international level — just this week, Shapiro was appointed to lead an international committee charged with reviewing the procedures of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
As his role has evolved over the decades, Shapiro has maintained his underlying commitment to dispassionate decision making, consensus-building and a focus on the long haul.
Princeton’s 18th president, Shapiro oversaw a period of conspicuous development for the University’s campus and endowment. During his 13-year tenure, he initiated the construction of Frist Campus Center, Scully Hall and Stephens Fitness Center. By spearheading relentless fundraising efforts and supporting the Princeton University Investment Company’s aggressive investments, he oversaw the quadrupling of the endowment from $2 billion to $8 billion. Shapiro saw financial growth as fundamental to securing the institution’s stability and advancing its world-class academic standing.
“He focused on essentials, and not every leader does that,” said astrophysics professor Jeremiah Ostriker, who served as provost under Shapiro from 1995 to 2001. Ostriker joined Shapiro’s administration at the launch of the Anniversary Campaign for Princeton in 1995, which commemorated the University’s 250th anniversary. The University raised $1.14 billion over five years, surpassing its goal of $750 million by nearly 50 percent.
“He had a long focus,” Ostriker added. “He developed five- or 10-year plans and always thought of the long-term impact.”
Though all aspects of the University would eventually fall under his purview, Shapiro’s first years at Old Nassau centered around a much narrower range of campus.
“I was maybe inside three buildings,” Shapiro said of his years as a graduate student. “My classes were for the most part all in Firestone. The economics department was then in Dickinson. East Pyne used to be a cafeteria.”
As Michigan’s president, Shapiro developed a philosophy of university administration that centered on gaining an in-depth understanding of competing perspectives — whether they came from disagreeing department chairs or the relationship between the university and its surrounding community.
“[I picked up] a more sophisticated understanding of the strengths of individual departments, the exact nature of the student body and a more comprehensive understanding of the students — all things you couldn’t learn at a distance,” Shapiro said.
When he assumed Princeton’s presidency the same year he ended his tenure at Michigan, Shapiro brought his approach with him.
Ostriker praised his former boss’s commitment to fundamentals. His focus was unique, because an awful lot of people in positions of leadership essentially spin their wheels or are involved in personality issues, but he cared about what was important," Ostriker said. “He was affable: There’s not much grumpy about him, and that helps him getting along with people."
But some students were frustrated by Shapiro’s leadership of an administration they considered detached, raising doubts about his ability to connect on a personal level, despite his deftness handling budgets and planning.
After Shapiro announced his impending retirement from the presidency, The Daily Princetonian Editorial Board characterized his leadership as less connected than those of his predecessors.
“Few of us had the chance to meet him — let alone see him — in between [Opening Ceremonies and Commencement],” the editorial said. “He left us the potential for great change, but never directly shaped our college experience.”
Far from the narrow focus of his graduate studies, Shapiro concerned himself with the University as a whole as its leader.
“Before I became president, I had never thought about the issue about whether institutions had moral responsibilities,” he recalled. “I knew individuals did, but the more I served as the head of an institution, the more it seemed to me that institutions had moral responsibilities. They had to think about the interests of others — even the people who are outside the institutions. Institutions have a public purpose, whether you’re private or public. As I spent more years in office, it became more and more important to me to try and think about what Princeton’s public purpose was.”
Later, Shapiro would articulate his views on the big issues of academia in his book titled “A Larger Sense of Purpose: Higher Education and Society,” published in 2005.
But Shapiro has also brought his ability for consensus-building and his interest in public policy to forums beyond FitzRandolph Gate. In 1996, President Bill Clinton appointed Shapiro to chair his National Bioethics Advisory Commission — one of more than 75 commission and advisory board memberships that appear on Shapiro’s resume.
Ostriker said he was not surprised by Shapiro’s latest appointment to head the IPCC review committee.
“He’s developed a reputation as a good consensus builder and committee chair,” Ostriker said. “I’m not surprised that he was asked [to chair this panel]. He’s probably asked to do a lot of things, but this one was sufficiently important that he accepted it.”
Despite his prominent roles on the national and international levels, though, Shapiro’s first love has always been teaching. In fact, a desire to return to the classroom was one of the driving forces that compelled Shapiro to retire from the presidency at the time that he did.
“I had always taught as president and had kept up my interest in teaching, so I always wanted to go back where I started from, and that’s where I wanted to end my career,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro’s emphasis on understanding ideas also emerges in the classroom, where he has shifted his focus from the economic questions he first tackled, teaching classes such as POL 554: International Security Studies, WWS 315: Bioethics and Public Policy and POL 552: Theories of International Politics.
Those who have taken classes with Shapiro spoke at great lengths about his extensive knowledge of the issues at hand and his demonstrated national expertise. Shapiro sets an example for students in his courses, removing personal feelings from the discussion in favor of intellectual exchanges, students said.
“One of the things that did stand out was that the highest compliment that [Shapiro] would award an idea was that it was thoughtful,” said Peter Dunbar ’10, who took WWS 315 with Shapiro. “His overarching theme with respect to the bioethical arguments we discussed was that reasonable people could disagree and that it was important to be cognizant of this and make your own decision about what argument was the most compelling.”
Joe Anaya ’12, a student in Shapiro’s seminar on bioethics last fall, also noted Shapiro’s emphasis on multiple viewpoints.
“He always seemed to go in with an open mind about something and always wanted to get all of the different possible views,” Anaya said. “He wanted to form a rational opinion based on those views, and he wouldn’t let his own personal leanings override his thinking. He would always come to the table with an open mind and would be looking to make the best decision based on the facts that he had.”
Dunbar also highlighted Shapiro’s “encyclopedic knowledge, not just of the issues, but the facts behind the issues.”
“It’s one thing to put facts on a PowerPoint and it’s another to be able to cite them on the fly while you’re talking,” he added.
A decade after turning over University leadership to President Shirley Tilghman — and amid the work he is doing on the world stage — Shapiro is still thinking about the larger issues concerning universities.
“What ought to receive more attention than it does is, What should universities be?” he said. “How should they balance teaching against research, and both of those against public service? Those things have always been important in the modern university, and they haven’t been talked about out loud very often ... It is absolutely vital to always reevaluate our ideas to incorporate new points of view and make sure that we’re still doing what we need to be doing.”
But Shapiro is thinking about issues pertaining specifically to the University as well.
“It occurred to me as I was thinking the other day, How would we all feel if students were allowed to give only one A in their faculty evaluations? What if the faculty were being graded and there was grade deflation that way? I just think that all of these issues are worth thinking about,” he said. “Some are funny, some are trivial — and some of these things really matter.”
Read More
U. investigating swastika graffiti in graduate student apartment building
Sena ChangGraffiti of a swastika was discovered in mid-July at Princeton’s Lakeside graduate housing complex, prompting Public Safety to boost patrols and investigate. The Department of Public Safety’s investigation is still ongoing, with no suspects identified.
Graffiti of a swastika was discovered in mid-July at Princeton’s Lakeside graduate housing complex, prompting Public Safety to boost patrols and investigate. The Department of Public Safety’s investigation is still ongoing, with no suspects identified.
U. discontinues Wintersession, citing budget constraints
Hayk YengibaryanThe University will discontinue the Office of Campus Engagement and Wintersession in September amid budget cuts, ending the six-year program that has offered winter session since 2021.
The University will discontinue the Office of Campus Engagement and Wintersession in September amid budget cuts, ending the six-year program that has offered winter session since 2021.
Princeton boosts financial aid despite potential budget cuts, new endowment tax
Devon RudolphThe financial aid increase comes amid a rocky financial picture for many elite universities, which are confronting the loss of research federal funding and an endowment tax passed by Congress in July. It could also reduce Princeton’s tuition-paying student population.
Princeton's recent announcement of a boosted financial aid program could allow the University to be exempt from the recently passed federal endowment tax.