PrincetonUniversity
 

Report of the Four-Year College Program Planning Committee
August 20, 2002

IV. Priorities

The Committee has high ambitions for the new college system, and we recognize that considerable resources will be required to implement the recommendations in this report. In the event that resource constraints require that some choices be made among our proposals, we want to make our priorities plain. For this purpose, we can divide our recommendations into two categories, those that are absolutely essential to the success of the colleges, and those that, while less essential, would both enrich the life of the colleges and serve other important institutional needs. We also note instances where it might be possible to cut back somewhat on what we have proposed or give up some things altogether. And we conclude with a brief account of the cost savings that will be realized through some of our other proposals.

Highest-priority recommendations: Four elements are critical to the success of this enterprise. One is housing, by which we mean the size and attractiveness of living spaces, along with ancillary spaces that foster community and make for comfortable living (lounges, study spaces, laundry facilities, etc.). The dormitories need to be designed so that juniors and seniors are fully comfortable drawing into residential colleges. The four-year colleges should have the best rooms on campus for juniors and seniors.

The second critical element is dining -- quality of food, hours of availability, attractiveness of ambiance, and flexibility of dining arrangements. Dining is absolutely central to residential communities. The colleges will succeed in drawing juniors and seniors only if eating there does not require settling for less than they could find by eating somewhere else.

The third critical element is the decentralization into the residential colleges of advising and support for all juniors and seniors, both because it will allow the University to do a better job of meeting the academic and personal needs of all students, and because it provides the essential link between all juniors and seniors and the residential colleges, and thus establishes an overall environment that will enable the four-year colleges to thrive.

A fourth element of the highest importance, different in kind from the other three, is the construction of masters' residences that are visually integrated into Butler, Whitman, and Wilson colleges.

Recommendations that serve other institutional needs: Several of our recommendations have the byproduct of addressing needs that currently exist on campus and will become even more pressing as the undergraduate student body grows Irrespective of plans for the colleges, the University will likely be obliged to find ways to meet those needs.. Locating those facilities in the colleges will thus simultaneously improve the colleges as well as benefit the University.

The first example is classrooms. We have proposed that each college have two classrooms and one conference room. The registrar has made plain that more classroom space will be needed to accommodate 500 additional undergraduates, and he sees the four-year colleges as a logical venue for new classrooms. Having more formal academic activities in the colleges, as we have argued, will enhance integration of the academic and non-academic aspects of undergraduate life at Princeton.

Additional rehearsal and performance space is a very high priority for undergraduates, and as the University decides what it can do to meet that demand (a demand that will only grow with the admission of additional students), the colleges provide a logical venue for these new facilities. Again, locating those facilities in residential colleges will plainly enrich the life of the colleges.

Student demand for library carrels regularly outruns the available supply, and with 500 additional undergraduates, the problem will become more acute. Locating those carrels in the four-year colleges would both meet a real institutional need and help to build an intellectual community among upperclass students in the residential colleges.

Where could we cut back? If absolutely necessary, the colleges could function with one classroom and one conference room apiece, although, as just noted, the campus-wide need for classrooms has to be dealt with in any case. The colleges could function with less rather than more elaborate performance facilities, but the University needs to decide, irrespective of the colleges, what facilities are really required to support rehearsal and performance for undergraduates. The colleges could manage without carrels for resident upperclass students, but the University will need to reckon with ways of providing sufficient carrels to match the expansion of the undergraduate student body.

Two of our facilities recommendations deserve particular scrutiny. For all the advantages of having fitness facilities in the colleges, they are expensive to equip, maintain, and staff, and it may be more practical in the end to expand the Stephens Fitness Center in Dillon Gym. For all the appeal of building a fixed-seat theater in Whitman, it will be expensive for the college to run, and it may be more sensible in the end to build a high-quality black box theater instead.(*4)

Beyond facilities, if we were pressed to do so, what might we give up? The colleges might be able to manage with eight rather than ten graduate students in residence, but that would diminish the considerable benefits we believe will come through interaction between graduate students and undergraduates in the residential colleges, and with forty-eight rather than sixty graduate students in residence, the colleges would do less to mitigate the significant pressure on graduate student housing. As well, we could forgo having two faculty members in residence in each of the colleges, but those dozen faculty members would be paying rent to the University, and there continues to be a pressing need for faculty housing.

Cost savings: The Committee has deliberately built some cost savings into the proposals made in this report.

1. Assistant Masters: Under the current system, we have ten assistant masters in the residential colleges. Each assistant master is currently paid a stipend of $9,500. Beyond that, the compensation depends on where the students stand in their programs of study. For enrolled graduate students, we pay the costs of tuition and student health insurance. For post-enrolled students, we pay the costs of employee-only health insurance, plus benefits on the stipend and the health insurance. The balance between enrolled and post-enrolled graduate students varies from year to year; in the year just past, seven of the assistant masters have been enrolled graduate students, but that number has also been as low as five or six in recent years. The total cost of assistant masters' tuition, stipends, and health insurance in FY02 was $289,300. As well, we pay the full-year rent for assistant masters' apartments in or near the residential colleges; in FY02, the rent for the ten apartments totaled $113,700. The elimination of the assistant master position will therefore yield significant savings: in FY02 dollars, $498,000 would no longer need to be expended from general funds. If one factors in the conversion of assistant master apartments into income-producing rental facilities, the total increment to general funds would be nearly $612,000.
2. RAs and MAAs: Under the current system, there are sixteen RAs and MAAs in four of the five residential colleges; the fifth college has seventeen advisers because of its particular geographical configuration. Adviser compensation consists of a free dormitory room, a ten-meal contract, and the waiving of the residential college fee. The Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students pays the compensation for seventy-three of the eighty-one advisers; the residential colleges pick up the costs for the remaining eight. By reducing the number of advisers in the four-year colleges by three in each college, we will save nine adviser positions across the system (a reduction of six from the current total of eighty-one, with the additional savings coming by virtue of the fact that the incremental staffing required for Whitman will be at the reduced level of thirteen instead of the expected level of sixteen). Given that each adviser typically occupies two dormitory rooms instead of one, the cost savings here will also be significant: in FY02 dollars, $50,900.
3. Senior Fellows: Under the current system, each residential college has a senior faculty fellow who is paid a stipend of $8,000. The elimination of these positions will yield more modest but still nontrivial cost savings: in FY02 dollars, $40,000.

(*4) The report of the task force impaneled by President Shapiro to consider needs for, and the most effective use of, campus spaces for the performing arts should provide some useful guidance.