Former president of Princeton University

Robert F. Goheen, 88, who led Princeton University during a time of turbulent change on its New Jersey campus and across the country, died of heart failure Monday at the University Medical Center at Princeton.

Goheen was associated with the Ivy League school for more than 70 years as a student, teacher and administrator. He was a 37-year-old assistant classics professor when he became Princeton’s third-youngest president in 1957.

During his tenure, which lasted until his retirement in 1972, the university first admitted women, increased its ethnic and racial diversity and expanded its commitment to research while its annual budget quadrupled.

Princeton first opened its doors to women as graduate students in 1961 and as regular members of the undergraduate student body in 1969.

Born Aug. 15, 1919, in Vengurla, India, where his parents were serving as Presbyterian medical missionaries, Goheen came to the United States in 1934. He earned a bachelor’s degree in classics at Princeton in 1940. During World War II, he served for more than four years in the intelligence section of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He returned to Princeton and earned a master’s degree in 1947 and a doctorate a year later, both in classics. He was named an assistant professor at Princeton in 1950, then became director of the National Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Program in 1953.

After his retirement, Goheen served as president of the Council on Foundations from 1972 to 1976 and was appointed by President Carter as U.S. ambassador to India, serving from May 1977 through December 1980.

Goheen returned to Princeton in 1981 as a senior fellow in public and international affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School.