Robert Francis Goheen (August 15, 1919 – March 31, 2008) was an American academic, president of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

and

United States Ambassador to India The United States Ambassador to India is the chief diplomatic representative of United States in India. The U.S. Ambassador's office is situated at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. Chiefs of Mission to India U.S. Ambassadors to the Dominion of ...

Biography

Robert Francis Goheen was born on August 15, 1919, to Anne (Ewing) and Dr Robert H. H. Goheen in

Vengurla Vengurla is a town in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra, India just north of Goa. It is surrounded by a semicircular range of hills with lush green foliage mainly of cashew, mango, coconut, and different kinds of berry trees. The hills of Dabh ...

, India, where both his parents were serving as Presbyterian medical missionaries. His early education through the tenth grade was at Kodaikanal International School in India. After moving to the United States in 1934, he completed his secondary school education at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey in 1936. He then attended

, where he won the Moses Taylor Pyne Prize and graduated

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

with an A.B. in

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

in 1940 after completing a senior thesis titled "A Study of the Nature and Object of Tragedy." He was also an avid soccer player. During World War II, Goheen trained at

Camp Ritchie Fort Ritchie at Cascade, Maryland was a military installation southwest of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania and southeast of Waynesboro in the area of South Mountain. Following the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, it closed in 19 ...

and became one of many

Ritchie Boys The Ritchie Boys were a special collection of soldiers, with sizable numbers of German-Austrian recruits, of Military Intelligence Service officers and enlisted men of World War II who were trained at Camp Ritchie in Washington County, Maryland. ...

. His training as an intelligence officer at Ritchie during the war, in part, helped Goheen reach the rank of

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

. He returned to Princeton after the war to pursue graduate studies, earning a Ph.D. in classics in 1948 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "The imagery of

Sophocles Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or co ...

Antigone In Greek mythology, Antigone ( ; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or, in another variation of the myth, Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.Roman, L., & Roma ...

(a study of poetic language and structure)." Goheen was one of the first four students to receive a fellowship from

The Institute for Citizens & Scholars The Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly known as the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation) is a nonpartisan, non-profit based in Princeton, New Jersey that aims to strengthen American democracy by “cultivating the talent, ideas, ...

, established at Princeton to encourage war veterans to pursue a career in teaching. In 1942, Goheen married Margaret Skelly. They had four daughters (Anne, Trudi, Megan, and Elizabeth) and two sons (Stephen and Charley), who gave them 18 grandchildren, including the American novelist

Megan Crane Megan Crane (born c. 1973) is an American novelist who also writes as Caitlin Crews. She is also one half of upmarket paranormal women's fiction author Hazel Beck. Background She was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Ridgewood, New Jersey ...

. Goheen was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1962 and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1986.

Princeton University career

Goheen taught classics at Princeton as an assistant professor from 1950 until 1957, when he was appointed the university’s 16th president. He served as president of the university from 1957 to 1972. At 37, he was the youngest man to assume that position since the 18th century. Faced with the social and political challenges of the 1960s, Goheen encouraged student involvement in decision-making processes and initiated active recruitment of minorities, as well as overseeing the admission of women in 1969. The New York Times reported after his death: "Dr. Goheen would eventually build or acquire 38 buildings, increasing the university’s indoor square footage by 80 percent. He quadrupled the budget, doubled alumni giving and increased the number of faculty members by 40 percent. ... The university changed fundamentally under Dr. Goheen’s leadership, going from an establishment cradle to a diversified and complex research university. He attacked the exclusivity of the eating clubs, even opening one to be run by the university. He hired Princeton’s first black administrator and first black full professor and aggressively recruited promising minority students."

Later life

After his retirement from Princeton in 1972, he was named president of the

Council on Foundations The Council on Foundations, founded in 1949, is a nonprofit leadership association of grantmaking foundations and corporations. The Council's mission is to provide the opportunity, leadership, and tools needed by philanthropic organizations to exp ...

in New York. On January 1, 1977, he became president of the

Edna McConnell Clark Foundation The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (also McConnell Clark Foundation, Clark Foundation, or EMCF) is a New York-based institution that currently focuses on providing opportunities for low-income youth (ages 9–24) in the United States. The Founda ...

, but that April he was appointed by President

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

to become

. He served in the country of his birth from 1977 to 1980. He returned to Princeton University in 1981, serving on the faculty of the

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) is a professional public policy school at Princeton University. The school provides an array of comprehensive course ...

. He was involved with many activities related to Asia, including a Study Mission to the Philippines in January 1986 sponsored by the Asia Society. He died in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

on March 31, 2008.

References

External links

Robert F. Goheen Papers at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton UniversityPrinceton University biography and index to papers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goheen, Robert 2008 deaths 1919 births Presidents of Princeton University Ambassadors of the United States to India Princeton University alumni Princeton University faculty United States Army personnel of World War II American University of Beirut trustees Kodaikanal International School alumni Lawrenceville School alumni United States Army officers Ritchie Boys Members of the American Philosophical Society 20th-century American diplomats 20th-century American academics