Despite working at Princeton University for her entire 34-year academic career, Deborah Prentice is still sometimes seen as an outsider.
Such is the tribalism at elite institutions, the outgoing provost – who has held every position on the academic ladder at Princeton – was educated at Stanford University, then studied her PhD in psychology at Yale University and therefore, in the eyes of some, can never truly be “one of us”.
It may be harder still to shake such outsider status at the University of Cambridge, where Professor Prentice has been named the 347th vice-chancellor, particularly as, unlike her predecessors, she is going in at the top having had no experience studying or teaching at the institution.
