The Graduate U-Council

MINUTES

Council of the Princeton University Community Dodds Auditorium, Woodrow Wilson School December 11, 2000

Minutes of a meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community held on Monday, December 11, 2000. Present were the following: Mr. Amaya, Mr. Creesy, Mr. Dawson, Vice President Dickerson, Mr. Dressner, Ms. Fallon, Ms. Goodman, Professor Groth, Ms. Hale, Dr. Halliday (secretary), Mr. Hillegas, Mr. Kiczek, Mr. Kim, Professor Littman, Dean Malkiel, Mr. Miller, Professor Muldoon, Mr. Nemeroff, Provost Ostriker, Mr. Owens, Mr. Salvatore, Professor Schutt, Mr. Spies, Ms. Taga, Mr. Vere, Ms. Wheeler, and Mr. Wright.

The meeting began at 4:30 p.m. and was chaired by the Provost. There being no comments regarding minutes of the November 13 meeting, they were adopted as distributed to Council members in advance of the meeting.

Report from the Director of the Office of Public Safety

Mr. Witsil, Director of the Office of Public Safety, thanked the Council for the opportunity to give a yearly presentation on aspects of the work of his staff. He described Princeton’s record as one of the safest among institutions, with a low violent crime rate and relatively few other incidents. He reviewed recent steps adopted by the Office to help the community become involved in crime prevention, including a program that paired members of his staff with particular residences, and a program of anti-rape self defense available to members of the community. The Office continued with efforts to improve campus climate by engaging in diversity discussions with students and others. He invited members of the Council to visit the department’s website for more information about crime prevention and other topics of interest. http://webware.princeton.edu/PUBSAF/.

Discussion followed. Members of the Council urged Public Safety to continue to work with students to find the most effective ways to alert the campus community when serious crimes have been committed. Graduate students suggested that prox cards, allowing entry to undergraduate dormitories, be changed to allow graduate students to enter these dormitories. The Provost and Vice President for Campus Life both agreed that such a change should be implemented. In response to other comments, Mr. Witsil urged students to contact Public Safety for assistance if friends became intoxicated. There were practical reasons for identifying the intoxicated student, but the overriding concern was always to assure that the student was transported safely to McCosh Infirmary. There was also discussion about new parking facilities and traffic patterns that would come into effect with the opening of the parking garage.

Report on Graduate Student Housing

Vice President for Facilities Kathleen Mulligan then brought the Council up to date on graduate student housing. The past fall’s experience had marked a sharp departure in terms of availability of housing for graduate students because of an unusually large number of students offered admission and a sharp increase in demand for housing in neighboring communities. She described steps taken this past fall by the Housing Office to identify more housing, including working with real estate agents to find housing in the community, transferring University faculty-staff housing to graduate students, working with local municipalities to open up affordable housing units to students, and renovating space as housing. She noted that the size of the Graduate School had increased lately but that there had also been an increase in the number of housing units operated by the University. This fall there has been an unusually high demand, but the Housing Office believed that this trend would continue, and she invited suggestions from members of the University community especially about short-term solutions. The University was giving serious consideration to building new housing units, but this would take time.

Discussion followed. Graduate students expressed deep dissatisfaction over the lack of housing this past fall. The Provost and Associate Dean of the Graduate School provided explanations, pointing to the concurrence of appreciably higher demand for housing in the local communities, and the relative autonomy of departments in divisions III and IV to admit students, making it more difficult to anticipate exact enrollment figures. The Provost emphasized that these were explanations, not excuses, and he expressed his own concern that solutions be found. He reiterated Ms. Mulligan’s comment that the University was seriously considering building new facilities, and while the University was willing to spend the necessary resources to improve housing availability, resources could not solve the short-term lack of housing. He characterized this discussion as one of an on-going review led by the Housing Office and Ms. Mulligan to prepare for the coming fall, and said that the Council would return to the topic in the spring.

Search for the next President

Next Mr. Wright, secretary to the Presidential Search Committee, gave a status report on the search. The Committee, which included faculty, students and administrators as well as Trustees, was conducting sourcing interviews with members of the University community and leaders in higher education to identify candidates and to discuss the criteria that should be applied in reviewing candidates. He emphasized the importance to the success of the search of confidentiality, and in response to a question said that no list of finalists would be made public.

Priorities Committee

With the permission of the Council, the Provost then added to the agenda an update from the CPUC’s Priorities Committee which was preparing recommendations for the FY02 operating budget. The Provost summarized the Committee’s most recent thinking with respect to the requests that it had received. He mentioned that this would probably be an unusual year thanks to the likely adoption by the Trustees of a change in the spending rate that would provide additional funds for FY02. Departments with endowments would benefit from the increase, as would the operating and capital budgets. The Provost reported that among uses of the funds under consideration by the Trustees were support for new academic initiatives, such as a new writing program, funding to increase the rate of capital renovations, and paying down debt on capital programs which would release funds in the future for other uses.

New Business

Finally, again with the permission of the Council, the Provost introduced new business in the form of a brief report by Vice President of Facilities Kathleen Mulligan concerning action likely to be endorsed by the Residence Committee concerning candles in dormitories. Ms. Mulligan described deliberations of the Committee based on the unfortunate experience of 16 fires in the past 4 years in dormitories many of which were related to candles. The Offices of Risk Management and of Public Safety urged that candles be banned, and this step gained urgency in light of new state regulations to enhance fire safety in dormitories. The proposal was now being discussed with student groups and would likely be phased in during the spring term, with students being given ample notice to comply. The Committee’s deliberations included accommodating religious observances and ceremonies. She offered to discuss the proposal with students.

There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 6:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Ann Halliday Secretary