Princeton in New Jersey

Thus was former Princeton, as well as Yale and Harvard, professor Paul Ylvasaker quoted in a magazine article in the late 1960s. That was a time when cities large and small were in crisis, dozens exploding in rebellion; recall the violent “rebellions” of 1967-68 when tanks and armored personnel carriers roamed the streets of Newark, Detroit, the nation’s capital and many other cities.

Ylvasaker, who died in 1992 at age 70, was a lifelong champion of the cause of the nation’s neglected cities, especially their growing urban underclass, predominantly black, Hispanic, immigrant — and poor. He was also a pioneer in education innovation, graduating from a humble teacher’s college in his native Minnesota before moving on to the Ivy League and the Ford Foundation.

For some reason I thought of him and what he did for Princeton with its “Semester in the Cities” internship program after I made a wrong turn in my building. By habit, I exited the stairwell on the second floor, where my offices used to be — we’ve since moved up in the world, to the third floor — and I came to the “Princeton in” program offices, “Princeton in Asia,” “Princeton in Africa” and “Princeton in Latin America.”

Princeton has developed a powerful focus on international issues and experiences. Students can spend a semester abroad for course credit. They can also work in Asia, Africa and Latin America in public interest jobs through the post-graduation “Princeton in” programs, administered in this Nassau Street building.

Why not a “Princeton in New Jersey” program, I wondered?

Why not Wilson School internships in Trenton or Camden or Newark where the need for creative energy and problem solving remains huge?

And then it hit me: If we can send Princeton students to Johannesburg or La Paz, why not to this state’s beleaguered cities, where problems of poverty, lousy schools and shrinking tax base still persist? In short, why not bring back the “Semester in the Cities” program?

My law partner, Peter Dickson ’73, was among those students lucky enough to study under Ylvasaker’s wings. He was an intern for course credit in Newark for that oft-stricken city’s first African-American mayor, Ken Gibson, who famously coined the phrase: “Wherever America’s cities are going, Newark will get there first.”

By that comment, Gibson meant, the matrix of urban problems starkly seen in Newark in the ′60s — concentrated poverty, racial “ghettos,” white flight, crumbling housing, shrinking tax base, shuttered industries, unemployment, drug abuse and crime, wholesale corruption — would be found in other cities, sooner of later, if only we cared to look.

In the “Semester in the Cities” program, a few Princeton undergrads spent half an academic year living in one of these distressed cities — including Newark, where Dickson lived — while working in City Hall alongside the mayor and his staff, struggling to keep the city afloat.

Nowadays, most big cities are more ascendant and hardly the magnets for socially conscious undergraduates they once were. (Disclosure: After graduation in 1968, I did social work in the Bronx focused on teen gang issues, before “burn out” led me to a temporary job relaxing as cab driver, but I digress.)

Today, the riots of the ′60s are almost forgotten and young professionals flock to white-collar jobs in big American cities. These cities — with notable exceptions, such as Detroit — seem to be doing well, or at least a lot better.

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Not so, much closer to home. Trenton, only 12 miles away, has lost $42 million of state aid, courtesy of rampant budget cutting by the current denizens of the State House. Newark, despite a pocket of prosperity downtown, remains in trouble. And Camden, America’s poorest city, is on life support with half its police force laid off. Urban education generally, based as it is on the regressive property tax, is in crisis.

What’s to be done? With kudos to the “civic engagement” advanced by the Pace Center for Civic Engagement, I suggest that “Princeton in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations” should look closer to home both for inspiration and outlets. We have poverty within an hour’s drive of Nassau Hall. A small part of the answer might be a revival of the “Semesters in the Cities” program, which would bring students to cities in New Jersey, but also to the Detroits of the country. A “Princeton in New Jersey” program, or a program in the Detroits of the country, could be a small part of the answer.

Many an urban official would doubtless welcome the help and attention of Princeton students. Think of Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, grappling with the “problem” of how to spend $100 million for school reforms, courtesy of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Or think of Marty Johnson ′81, former Princeton trustee and founder of Isles, Inc. in Trenton, a model of grassroots entrepreneurship. Or think of Dallas Dixon ’74, who gave up his law practice to start a charter school in Trenton.

And think of Paul Ylvasaker. He would be proud to see his legacy revived.

R. William Potter ’68 is an attorney in Princeton and a frequent preceptor in law-related courses at the University. He can be reached at potterrex@cs.com