| News
from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Editors: CORRECTS biographical information on James McDonnell III from June 26 release; ADDS hometown information for new trustees. Princeton University names six new trusteesPRINCETON, N.J. -- Princeton University has named six new members of its Board of Trustees. The board elected Peter Lewis, James McDonnell III and Louise O'Brien to four-year terms as term trustees. Princeton alumni elected three board members, Eileen Guggenheim, Olivier Kamanda and Rajiv Vinnakota, also to four-year terms. The Board of Trustees is responsible for the finances and funds of the University. It approves the operating and capital budgets, supervises the investment of the University's endowment and oversees campus real estate and long-range physical planning. The trustees also exercise prior review and approval concerning changes in major policies, such as those in instructional programs and admission, as well as tuition and fees and the hiring of faculty members. Following is information about Princeton's new trustees: Eileen Guggenheim, of New York, is an educator and philanthropist who currently serves as vice chair of the Prince's Foundation, an organization founded by the Prince of Wales in London. She also is founder and president of the Villore Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports educational institutions in the arts internationally. Guggenheim is the first graduate alumna elected to the board from a slate of candidates not solely comprised of graduate alumni. Guggenheim earned her doctoral degree in art and archaeology from Princeton in 1982. She began teaching while at Princeton and went on to pursue a career in education, helping to found what is now the New York Academy of Arts. In her many years with the academy, she served as a professor and head of art history, dean of students and vice president of development. She currently is a special adviser to its Board of Trustees. Olivier Kamanda, who graduated from Princeton in June, majored in operations research and financial engineering. Kamanda, of Chevy Chase, Md., was elected a "young alumni trustee" by recent graduates and upperclassmen. He has served as vice president, class senator and minority issues action committee chair of the Undergraduate Student Government. As founder and coordinator of the Ideas in Action Lecture Series, Kamanda has sought to address social awareness and increased student involvement in political and social issues. He also has served as editor of Kruller Literary Magazine. Peter Lewis, of Beachwood, Ohio, is chairman and chief executive officer of The Progressive Corp. A 1955 Princeton graduate, he led the transformation of a small Cleveland insurance company into the nation's sixth largest auto insurer. With his support, the University recently established the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. Lewis also is supporting the construction of a new science library at Princeton being designed by the internationally acclaimed architect Frank Gehry. A longtime patron of the arts, Lewis serves on the boards of the Guggenheim Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Aspen Institute. James McDonnell III retired as vice president of the McDonnell Douglas Corp. of St. Louis in 1991 and served on the board until the company merged with Boeing in 1997. He is a 1958 Princeton graduate; McDonnell Hall on Princeton's campus is named for his father, James McDonnell, a member of the class of 1921. A longtime advocate for institutions in his hometown of St. Louis, McDonnell also has served as a trustee for the Missouri Botanical Garden, Bucknell University, the St. Louis Children's Hospital and David & Elkins College. He is a director of Boatmen's Trust Company and Centerre Trust Company. Louise O'Brien, of Boston, retired as vice president for corporate strategy and business development from the Dell Computer Corp. earlier this year. An experienced business executive and strategist, she currently is pursuing nonprofit and business advisory activities in Boston. She is a 1982 Princeton graduate. O'Brien also served as vice president of the industry solutions group, vice president for global account sales and the global enterprise program and vice president for enterprise product marketing at Dell, where she worked for six years. Previously, she was a partner at Bain & Co., a global strategy consulting firm. Rajiv Vinnakota is president and chairman of the board of the Schools for Educational Evolution and Development (SEED) Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he lives. After graduating from Princeton in 1993, he worked at Mercer Management Consulting for three years. In 1998, he opened a public boarding school designed to serve the most disadvantaged urban students in the Washington area. SEED began with 40 seventh-graders, and now enrolls 230 students in grades seven through eleven. Vinnakota has received the Princeton Club of Washington's Community Service Award and the Oprah Winfrey Show's Use Your Life Award, among other honors. |