Faculty

Princeton has been extraordinarily successful in recruiting and retaining top engineering faculty in recent years. In this time of very stiff competition among top engineering schools nationally, our success is sustained by our ability to offer endowed professorships to superb senior teachers and scholars. We have four new endowed chairs that give us the power to recruit, recognize, and retain outstanding faculty members.

€ Donald R. Dixon '69 established a professorship in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

€ Charles Fitzmorris Jr. '33 established a professorship in the Department of Computer Science.

€ R. James Macaleer '55 established a professorship in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

€ The Kenan Charitable Trust established a visiting professorship for distinguished teaching in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

We are in the process of finding the most worthy occupants for these new chairs.

Graduate students

Princeton competes with other leading institutions for top graduate students. Endowment for graduate financial support provides tuition and stipends and ensures our ability to be competitive in drawing the strongest graduate students to SEAS.

This effort received an enormous boost in January when the Board of Trustees approved an increase in endowment income spending and changes in the University's financial aid program.

This means that more money will flow to the Graduate School, which will now provide all first-year doctoral students in the sciences and engineering with full tuition and a stipend (see story on page 23).

Previously, two thirds of all first-year students relied on research grants and working as teaching assistants. Under the new program, none of them will be admitted to the University as assistants in research or assistants in instruction. Instead of being immediately committed to working on a research project or teaching a class, these students will have an opportunity to take a year to become familiar with the University and their individual department. For international graduate students whose first language is not English, it will give them time to improve their English.

This is an important initiative because it enables graduate students to do a number of things without being encumbered by teaching or research commitments.

"These initiatives will put Princeton very much in the lead in its support of graduate students," said President Harold T. Shapiro *64. "They will enable our students to concentrate even more fully on learning and conducting research."

Undergraduates

Beginning next fall, Princeton will eliminate its loan requirement for undergraduates, and replace it with additional scholarship support. Princeton is the first of its peer institutions to announce that aid recipients will not be required to borrow to pay for college.

All these components come together in the classroom, where faculty are developing and teaching new and exciting courses. These courses introduce students to the challenges of engineering early in their academic careers; give students more hands-on experience in the lab and with design projects; teach leadership, teamwork, and communication skills; and provide opportunities to learn about entrepreneurship.

These changes in financial aid will cost Princeton more than $5 million next year, with funding coming from strong growth in Princeton's endowment, the success of its Annual Giving program, and its recent fundraising campaign. Everyone in the education chain benefits.