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Release Distributed: January 6, 1999
Vanguard Group Chair John Bogle, Sloan Foundation President Ralph Gomory to be Honored on Alumni Day
Princeton, N.J. -- The 1999 recipients of Princeton's top honors for alumni are John C. Bogle, senior chair of the board of The Vanguard Group and a member of Princeton's Class of 1951, and Ralph E. Gomory, president of the Alfred Sloan Foundation, who received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1954. Both will receive their awards and deliver addresses on Alumni Day, which is February 20.
Bogle will receive the Woodrow Wilson Award, given each year to the undergraduate alumnus or alumna whose career embodies the call to duty in Wilson's famous speech, "Princeton in the Nation's Service." Gomory will receive the Madison Medal, named for James Madison, Princeton's first graduate student. This medal is given each year to an alumnus or alumna of the Graduate School who has had a distinguished career, advanced the cause of education, or achieved an outstanding record of public service. The awards will be presented at the annual Alumni Association luncheon.
At 9:15 a.m., Gomory will discuss education over the Internet and what it means for higher education in the United States in his address on "Electronic Education." At 10:30 a.m., Bogle will speak on Princeton's role in the mutual fund industry in a talk titled "Changing the Rules of Investing: The Hedgehog and the Fox." Both talks will be open to the public in Alexander Hall.
Bogle
John Bogle, who founded the mutual fund firm The Vanguard Group in 1974, had been associated with a predecessor company since 1951. Headquartered in Malvern, Pa., The Vanguard Group is one of the two largest mutual fund organizations in the world; it comprises more than 90 mutual fund portfolios, with current assets totaling more than $430 billion.
Bogle is the author of Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor, which has been a best-selling investment book since its publication in 1993.
His new book, Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor, is to be published in March. Appointed by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Arthur Levitt, Bogle has served on the Independence Standards Board since 1997. He is a director for several companies, including the Princeton University Investment Co.
Gomory
Gomory became president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation 1989 after his retirement from IBM. Founded in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the foundation awards grants principally for programs in science and technology, as well as those that explore education and careers in those areas, and programs focusing on standard of living issues and economic performance. During 1997 the Sloan Foundation authorized grants totaling $50 million.
Gomory served in the Navy and was a Higgins Lecturer in Mathematics at Princeton before joining IBM's newly founded Research Division in 1959 as a research mathematician. During his 30 years at IBM, while major contributions to semiconductor and magnetic disc technology were being made, as well as forward steps in the fields of lasers, solid state physics, algebraic complexity theory and fractals, he directed the company's research labs in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.; San Jose, Calif.; and Zurich, Switzerland. Gomory has served on a number of presidential advisory councils and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.