Eighty years after it opened as an academic center to prepare students for leadership in public service, the Wilson School is conducting a formal review of whether its undergraduate program is living up to its mission.
The review committee, co-chaired by Wilson School professor and former University president Harold Shapiro GS ’64 and Wilson School Associate Dean Nolan McCarty, will examine all aspects of the undergraduate program, including its selective admission policy.
This review follows recent evaluations of the school’s graduate program, McCarty said.
“Academic reviews are very normal things which should be done very often. The undergraduate program has not been reviewed for a long time,” Wilson School Dean Christina Paxson noted.
The other Wilson School faculty on the committee are professors Chistina Davis, Nan Keohane, Daniel Oppenheimer and David Wilcove, who is also the director of the Program in Environmental Studies.
The committee is rounded out by Deputy Dean of the College Peter Quimby, Whitman College Master and economics professor Harvey Rosen, and politics department associate chair Alan Patten.
McCarty said this is an opportune time for a review, following Paxson’s appointment as dean in 2009 and the resolution of the Robertson lawsuit in 2008, which resulted in the University taking control of the Robertson Foundation, which was then valued at over $700 million.
“With all of the problems in the past few years ... the program was never reviewed from the top to bottom," McCarty said.
The review will focus on four key areas, McCarty added: "rationale, structure, integration with the University and the admission process." Some of the key aspects that the review will look into include whether the Wilson School provides enough opportunities for students from other majors to take its courses, whether it adequately prepares students for their senior theses, and whether there is need for an interdisciplinary program in public policy in the first place.
As a first step, Paxson sent an e-mail to Wilson School alumni soliciting their perspectives on the school’s strengths and weaknesses. In several weeks, the committee, which is comprised entirely of Wilson School professors, will review the responses and form recommendations, McCarty said. The committee may then discuss its recommendations with current students, McCarty added.
The Wilson School is the only selective undergraduate major at Princeton. In recent years, roughly 180 sophomores have applied to the school, of whom 90 are admitted as concentrators or certificate students.
Paxson, however, said that selectivity was only one small aspect of the undergraduate program at the Wilson School.
"I'm always a little bit surprised that when people think of the school, it's the first thing that they focus on. There are so many other really important things," she said.
Nonetheless, the issue has always been controversial.
McCarty said that one of the motives behind the selective admission policy was to “manage diversity in a class ... in terms of students interested in international or domestic affairs, socioeconomic diversity and diversity in ideologies.”
“What we want to do is to make sure that we’re getting students in the school who really want to be here and really want to study public affairs and are well qualified to do that,” Paxson said.
Some students hold similar views. The selective admission process "is substantial enough to judge whether an applicant would actually have a high potential output as a student of public policy compared to any other discipline,” Ankit Panda ’12, a Wilson School major, said in an e-mail.
But Jim Behot ’11, another Wilson School major, said in an e-mail that the the selective admission process "is probably not necessary."
The Wilson School "offers a challenging course of study," Behot added, "but in my opinion students can challenge themselves as much if not more in other majors that don't have an admissions process."
One of these challenges — the junior year task force — is often cited by the school as justification for its current selection process.
“One of the reasons it is hard to make it an open major is because the aspects of the curriculum and structure, such as the task forces and the independent work, are more or less fixed in the number of open spots,” McCarty said.
But Paxson said she hopes the review committee will carefully examine the justification of the current policy.
"Personally, I don't love the idea of having students have to jump through another hoop after they get here," she said. "If the committee concludes that that's really the only way to go, I'll respect their judgment, but I really want them to look at it carefully."
Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article incorrectly identifed Deputy Dean of the College Peter Quimby as David Quimby.
Read More
Yale University to join Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP)
David YunYale University has joined Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, and the New York Public Library in one of the world’s largest library and archives preservation repositories and shared collections, Research Collections and Preservation Consortium, also known as ReCAP.
Yale University has joined Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, and the New York Public Library in one of the world’s largest library and archives preservation repositories and shared collections, Research Collections and Preservation Consortium, also known as ReCAP.
Princeton rising junior passes away in cycling accident
Victoria DaviesKerry Grundlingh ’27 has passed away in a cycling accident near her home in South Africa.
Kerry Grundlingh ’27 has passed away in a cycling accident near her home in South Africa.
15 personas detenidas por ICE en Calle Harrison, explican funcionarios de Princeton
Luke GrippoSegún el alcalde de Princeton, Mark Freda, inicialmente los oficiales de inmigración solamente estaban en busca de una persona. Ana Paola Pazmiño, directora ejecutiva del grupo local de defensa de la inmigración, Resistencia en Acción NJ, reveló que los oficiales detuvieron a estas personas y les pusieron en una camioneta mientras ellos estaban de camino a su trabajo de paisajismo.
Según el alcalde de Princeton, Mark Freda, inicialmente los oficiales de inmigración solamente estaban en busca de una persona. Ana Paola Pazmiño, directora ejecutiva del grupo local de defensa de la inmigración, Resistencia en Acción NJ, reveló que los oficiales detuvieron a estas personas y les pusieron en una camioneta mientras ellos estaban de camino a su trabajo de paisajismo.