The Alums Are Restless

T. Harding Jones (Princeton, '72) is not happy with his alma mater. Neither is Shelby Cullom Davis (Princeton, '30), U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland.

Or Asa S. Bushnell (Princeton, '21), former director of the U.S. Olympic Committee. They mourn The decline of the eating clubs, the admission of women students, the opening of campus activities to local residents. Says Jones:

"It's painful to see so much of the old tradition stripped away."

To oppose what they see as misguided administration policy at Princeton, the disgruntled grads have formed an organization called the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP). The counter-alumni group publishes Prospect, a handsome 32-page, trimonthly magazine that is headed by Jones and is directed to raising issues that members say are ignored by the Princeton Alumni Weekly. So far $200,000 in alumni contributions has rolled in to finance the magazine.

The Princetonians are not alone in their disenchantment with campus changes. At Yale a group of alumni and students have formed Lux et Veritas Inc.

(Light and Truth--Yale's Latin motto) to protest what they see as "a monopoly of one viewpoint--leftist." The group, which sends mailings to 35,000 Yale alumni, believes that the conservative viewpoint is not sufficiently represented in the university, which should be a "free marketplace for ideas."

Impact Felt. A similar organization has been started among Stanford alumni, spearheaded by Lowell W. Barry, a wealthy retired businessman. Called the New Founders League, it has--among other things--raised a ruckus over the showing of porno films on campus and a fraternity raffle of a nude dancer. Says Barry: "Some things like that happen on almost any campus, but there was a tendency, before our impact was felt, to be entirely too indifferent."

The dissident alumni movement started in the late 1960s, when conservative grads and students began to organize to counter the antiwar movement and politicizing of the campuses. The groups are motivated in about equal measure by political conservatism and nostalgia, and by a strong tinge of social snobbery. One CAP appeal for support wistfully calls for the "early consolidation--not of the Old Princeton, not of what is being recognized as the New Princeton, but of the Best of All Possible Princetons." What that might mean is unclear. What it most certainly does not mean is girls in the dorm, a Gay Alliance on campus, allowing older citizens to audit courses, or a sex-blind policy on admissions, which Princeton adopted last year.

College officials frankly find the dissident grads a headache ("A pain in the ass is probably closer," says one Stanford administrator). They resent the old grads' tendency to play fast and recklessly with the truth and to make a cause celebre out of every campus incident. There is also a fear that the grads might sabotage alumni contributions.

"For many of the alumni," says Princeton Sociology Professor Marvin Bressler, who headed the committee that recommended the open-admissions policy on women, "Princeton is remembered as a time of beauty in their lives. Some are hopelessly in love with their youth. But you cannot maintain an institution that has been the preserve of a hereditary aristocracy--nor do most alumni wish to do so." Disgruntled grads or no, he adds, Princeton will go right on responding to the pressures of a changing society.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.