Malkiel: 24 years at the helm

Rockefeller College master Stanley Katz entered the Rocky dining hall to have dinner with Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel one April evening in 1984. Instead of the subdued meal he expected, he found the hall filled with most of the college’s students and faculty gathered together to celebrate his 50th birthday at a celebration organized by Malkiel herself.

“It was really spectacular,” Katz, who is now a Wilson School professor, said. “That’s probably my best memory.”

Many members of the University community have special memories of Malkiel, who is set to step down after a 24-year tenure at the end of this year, ranging from afternoons spent discussing African-American history in her precepts to recollections of her recently deceased miniature schnauzer Skipper, a campus icon whose crate and many stuffed animals still lie untouched in the dean’s West College office.

But current undergraduates and recent alumni will likely remember Malkiel more controversially as the architect of the University’s much-debated grade deflation policy. The policy, which sets guidelines limiting the number of A grades awarded to undergraduates in each department, has led to strongly worded and often negative discussions of the dean’s record tenure. Malkiel has been described in the media, on forums such as PrincetonFML and in conversation as “arrogant,” “myopic,” “Dolores Umbridge” and even “the original Spawn of Satan,” and a 2009 letter to the ‘Prince’ proposed that Malkiel donate her salary to the USG budget until a peer university adopted the grade deflation policy.

“Dean Malkiel’s tenure was marked by a total lack of communication with the undergrads whom she ostensibly served,” Jacob Savage ’06 said in an email to The Daily Princetonian. “Good riddance.”

Despite her controversial image, however, Malkiel has won the respect and admiration of numerous colleagues, students and friends by spearheading many of the University’s most significant initiatives. In addition to the grading policy, Malkiel has overseen the establishment of the four-year residential college system, the Princeton Writing Program, the Freshman Seminar program and revised general education requirements, among other developments.

“No one could serve as long or as well as she has without an institutional loyalty that is quite rare these days,” former University president William Bowen GS ’58 said. “I’m not sure how much students know how rare it is for such a high-quality academic to give so much time to institutional pursuits that many would not find worth it.”

Former USG president Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10 said in an email that he had learned a lot from the dean. “She never talked down to or coddled me,” he said. “The student body will almost certainly remember her as the pioneer of the grade deflation policy, but to focus solely on that initiative when reflecting on Dean Malkiel’s tenure would be a vast underrepresentation of her accomplishments.”

When asked how she felt about her image on campus, Malkiel shrugged. “You can’t be in a job like this and get upset by what The Daily Princetonian says,” she said. “You have to be able to have some perspective in a role like this ... there are a lot of things I’ve done over time that not everybody agrees with.”

An early start

Born in Newark to a businessman father and homemaker mother, Malkiel developed an interest in institutions and their functioning from an early age, she recalled. After 13 years at The Park School of Baltimore, she attended Smith College. She entered Smith with a wide range of academic interests, initially intending to concentrate in math.

“I did second year calculus, but then the next course I took was differential equations,” she said. “Then I ran out of enthusiasm for math.”

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Eventually electing to major in history, Malkiel soon became interested in extracurricular activities as well. She chaired the Curriculum Committee of the undergraduate student government and was the editor-in-chief of The Sophian, Smith’s college newspaper.

“I got to see up close how the college worked,” she said. “I got from those experiences a sense that, if you were going to be part of a community, you might as well take a hand in making it run.”

Smith classmate Carol Berde said she remembered Malkiel as a very serious student who spent much of her time at the library. “Neither of us were social butterflies — we did not date a whole lot,” Berde said. “We spent a lot of time talking about our classes and readings and work.”

Chilton Davis, another one of Malkiel’s classmates at Smith, said she was not at all surprised by the direction that her career had taken since graduation. “You should know that Nancy at Smith was very much like Nancy as the dean of the college,” Davis said. “Superbly organized, very linear in her thinking and able to cover a remarkable amount of ground.”

After graduating from Smith, Malkiel left to pursue a Ph.D. in history at Harvard, where her dissertation adviser recommended her for a teaching position at Princeton. She was offered an assistant professorship after speaking with the University’s history department. Malkiel began teaching at the University in the fall of 1969 — the same fall when the University began admitting women — and said she remembers being “pretty visible on campus” because of her status as one of only three women in the professorial ranks across the University.

Malkiel’s former students include the three Princeton graduates who recently joined the Supreme Court: Associate Justices Samuel Alito ’72, Sonia Sotomayor ’76 and Elena Kagan ’81.

Jake Miller ’09, who was assigned Malkiel as his thesis adviser, said that he was initially apprehensive about working with the dean. His friends would make jokes that only 35 percent of his thesis would be graded, he said.

“But she’s not a villain at all,” Miller said. “I know people feel that way, but she’s just a normal person. And she always made time for me — I would send her a draft of a chapter ... and she would have it printed out and marked up by the next day.”

Miller is also a former sports editor for The Daily Princetonian.

Meanwhile, David Stone ’80, who was also advised by Malkiel, said he felt that the dean had helped him with his thesis in a different way — by providing support as he wrote his thesis while his father was dying of cancer.

“There’s not a doubt in my mind that my ability to write that thesis and to do well in my senior year in the face of pretty hard moments ... was due to the kind of warmth and friendship of having someone like Nancy be my adviser,” he said.

Promoted to dean of the college in March 1987, Malkiel quickly gained a reputation as a creative leader, unflagging in her efforts to improve the undergraduate experience and to increase academic rigor at the University.

Dealing with grade deflation

The later years of Malkiel’s tenure, however, gave rise to some of the University’s most controversial policies to date. Most of the resentment toward Malkiel arises from the University’s grading policy, which Malkiel has tirelessly defended in interviews, meetings, a 2009 debate hosted by the Whig-Cliosophic Society and a 2010 guest column in the ‘Prince.’

The policy, Malkiel explained, was intended to encourage all academic departments in the University to grade students in a similar fashion as well as to give students information about “the difference between their most outstanding work and their ordinarily good work.”

Despite strong concerns across campus that employers and graduate schools are largely unaware of the University’s grading policy, Malkiel noted that the administration has taken extensive measures to fully explain the policy to students, faculty members and the general public.

“We’ve taken every suggestion from the University about communications,” she said. “I’ve sent thousands of letters to graduate schools, law schools, medicals schools, employers, explaining the policy. I’ve sent them ‘Grading at Princeton,’ ” the University-issued explanation of its policy.

Several students, however, said they felt that Malkiel’s defenses of the policy have been weak and ineffective.

“One of my favorite quotes from Nancy Malkiel was ... when she was talking about how a 3.49 GPA rounds to a 3.5,” said Sarah, a junior who asked that her name be changed for this article. “I feel like that shows a really surprisingly unashamed nonchalance — maybe she was making a joke, but it’s a legitimate concern. She’s a dean. She should act like one.”

Yet others said they felt that Malkiel had responded well to the controversy raised by the policy. “I think it gets overblown,” Miller noted. “It’s well-intended. After getting to know Dean Malkiel over the course of a year, I can unequivocally say that she only wants what is best for Princeton students.”

Alan Rice ’11 agreed that the dean had good intentions, but added that the policy’s failure was that the administration expected other colleges to follow suit and neglected to adjust the policy when it became clear that Princeton was forging ahead alone.

“I don’t think there’s a reason to vilify her, but I think she was a bit stubborn and sticking to her guns on things that weren’t working out well,” Rice said.

President Shirley Tilghman, who has long supported Malkiel’s policies, said she regretted that Malkiel has had to bear the brunt of criticism about the grading policy.

“I think poor Dean Malkiel gets much more flak than I do — she did become the visible symbol of the policy,” Tilghman said. “Some students have clearly been given a very easy scapegoat.”

Tilghman added that she felt that there were several underappreciated facts about the policy that should be shared with the public. “It’s had a very, very modest effect on the overall GPA of the student body,” she said. “And students should be thrilled, because what it created was a level playing field [between departments].”

She acknowledged, however, that the administration may not have succeeded fully in communicating these details. “I don’t at all blame Dean Malkiel for this,” Tilghman said. “I blame all of us who were responsible for articulating the policy. Had we gone out talking about how this was about fairness, it might have been better received.”

Malkiel echoed Tilghman’s sentiments. “I think that that’s true,” she said of the characterization of the grading policy as a University initiative, not her own. “I would just remind you that this is the faculty’s policy, not my personal policy. It wasn’t my idea in the first place.” The faculty voted in favor of the University grading policy in 2004, Malkiel explained.

“I know the students personalize it as my policy, but what I’m doing is implementing the will of the faculty,” she said.

However, several current and former students noted that, while they were unsure of whether Malkiel was solely responsible for largely unpopular policies such as grade deflation, they felt that it was inevitable that she deserved some of the blame and that recent policies had negatively impacted their perceptions of her. Many only agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.

“Whether it’s her policy or not, she’s the boss of that jurisdiction in Princeton,” said Eric, an alumnus who asked that his name be changed for this article. “I’d say Malkiel’s probably the most unpopular administrator Princeton has.”

Despite the debate surrounding the policy, Malkiel noted that she expects that the grading policy will continue after her tenure, given that it was voted on by the faculty. She added that many of the initiatives implemented during her tenure have changed the University significantly and for the better.

“Many of the things students benefit from in the current generation of undergraduates are new initiatives that we — that I — have undertaken over the last 24 years,” she said. “None of these were true before I became dean.”

Opening up the colleges

Provost Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said in an email that he felt that Malkiel’s greatest achievement at the University has been the establishment of the four-year residential college system. The system, he said, “will provide generations of students with a set of choices, a quality of residential life and meaningful connections to Princeton that were not available to their predecessors.”

Katz agreed, adding that he felt Malkiel’s contribution to residential college life has been the single biggest change to the University in his 32-year tenure.

After serving as the founding master of Mathey College from 1982 to 1987, Malkiel said, she first began thinking about how the University could create more opportunities for juniors and seniors to stay in residential colleges and increase interaction between upperclassmen and underclassmen.

Eventually, the University initiated its four-year college program with the opening of Whitman College and Mathey to upperclassmen in 2007. Butler College followed in fall 2009.

“I think the system has worked pretty well,” Malkiel said. “By having the same dean and director of studies oversee your well-being for all four years, we’re able to do a very good job of helping students through the place.” She added that the demand of juniors and seniors for spaces in the colleges has increased.

Tilghman noted that, while the colleges have made Princeton “a much better university,” she feels that the system has not yet lived up to its fullest potential. “Traditions take a while to build,” she said. “If you come back in 10 years, my guess is that colleges will be serving the University even better than they are today.”

Meanwhile, students such as Jasmine Jeffers ’11 disagreed that the colleges have been a positive change for the University. “The Princeton experience differs so much from year to year — trying to get seniors to hang out with freshmen when they’re just in very different places is going to be difficult,” she said. “[The colleges are] also much too large for that kind of intimate interaction to occur.”

Rice said he felt that, similar to grade deflation, the good intentions were there with the residential colleges but did not work out in practice. The system seems more intent on drawing high numbers of juniors and seniors than on building a sense of community, he explained.

Yet the dean appeared nonchalant about having to defend herself and her policies so strongly over the years, noting that she is happy to do so. “I’m accustomed to explaining many things about Princeton time and time again to undergrads, faculty members, parents,” she said. “I’m prepared to address them.”

Looking forward

Asked if she had any regrets about her tenure as dean, Malkiel paused.

“I wish we could have changed the academic calendar,” she said. “Putting exams before Christmas ... we couldn’t figure out how to get traction on that. We were never smart enough to make a proposal that would command sufficient support to carry in a faculty meeting.”

Yet in general, the dean said, her time at the University has been extremely fulfilling because of the opportunity she has had to strengthen undergraduate education at “the best University institution in the world” and work in an exciting atmosphere where “there is no typical day.”

In fall 2011, Malkiel’s office in 403 West College will be taken over by English professor Valerie Smith, who is sure to do “an excellent job,” Malkiel said. Malkiel plans to take a yearlong leave before returning to her teaching and scholarship work in the history department and is hoping to write a book on coeducation at Princeton and to teach a freshman seminar on the topic in fall 2012.

In the meantime, she said she will be focusing on enjoying what time is left in her tenure and remembering the simple things about her life at the University.

“When the sky is completely blue and ... the sun is shining on Nassau Hall and the trees are flowering, and you walk around and think ‘How could I be so lucky to work and live in such a beautiful place?’ ” she said, smiling. “Those have been my best days at Princeton.”