PrincetonUniversity
 

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

  B. Programming

Programs and activities: The Committee was impressed by the variety and quality of programs and activities currently offered in the two-year residential colleges. These include, among others, lunches and dinners with invited speakers; trips to New York (and, to a lesser extent, Philadelphia) for theater, opera, ballet, museums, and sporting events; language tables, current events tables, and other subject-specific tables at meals; discussion groups on race, ethnicity, and intergroup relations; faculty fellows' presentations and receptions; informational sessions and workshops on such topics as study abroad, summer internships, preparation for graduate and professional school, and careers in public service, law, health professions, and teaching; films, musical performances, theatrical performances, and art exhibits; community service projects; afternoon teas and late-night study breaks; parties large and small, themed and unthemed; barbecues, picnics, and ice cream parties; literary magazines, yearbooks, and newsletters; and intramural sports.

The Committee assumes that a comparable array of programs and activities will be mounted in the four-year colleges, and it looks to those colleges to devise compelling, engaging offerings that will enrich the lives of their members. We should be mindful, also, of the many events and programs sponsored by other groups across the University; the Committee encourages the colleges to seek ways of collaborating with those groups by hosting their activities in college spaces.

While the Committee will not specify a set menu of programs and activities, it will make some observations about factors that are likely to influence programming in four-year colleges:

• Four-year colleges will be distinctive in the extent to which they provide the opportunity for students to take charge of their own lives and determine the nature of college programming. With ample budgets and facilities to enable an active recreational, social, and cultural life, four-year colleges will provide an opportunity for upperclass students to exercise independent initiative and leadership. Instead of the tendency for top-down leadership of college staff in two-year colleges, the four-year colleges will be characterized by leadership from the students in the college.
• The presence of upperclass students and graduate students makes it more likely that intellectual and cultural programs and activities will thrive in the colleges. Their maturity and greater life experience will draw younger students into programs and activities that are currently less well attended than they might be. As well, they will generate new programs and activities, such as a book group, a film society, a student-run café with poetry readings and open-mike performances, or a salon where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates gather to share favorite writings or pieces of music.
• The college council will be a central vehicle for student leadership, with juniors and seniors taking important initiative and bringing to council deliberations and planning efforts a level of experience and sophistication that will likely enhance the quality and continuity of college activities. At the same time, older students can assist freshmen and sophomores in developing their leadership skills. The overall programming in the college might be further enhanced through the involvement of nonresident juniors and seniors. The charter of the college council might specify the number of positions that should be filled by students in each class and by resident members and nonresident affiliates of the college. The Committee assumes that the college council will take an active role in sponsoring social events, in working with the college staff to bring cultural events into the college, and in working with resident graduate students charged with responsibility for recreational, social, and cultural activities. Indeed, upperclass-underclass and graduate student-undergraduate partnerships will be essential to the successful development and delivery of recreational, social, and cultural activities in the college.
• The presence in four-year colleges of upperclass students and graduate students makes it more likely that student-generated activities can be sustained over a period of years. This is true of activities as diverse as literary magazines, chamber music groups, community service projects, and film series. Older students invested in the activity can provide leadership, bring younger students along, and provide the continuing enthusiasm that guarantees the long-term viability of the endeavor. Importantly, providing conspicuous opportunities for upperclass student leadership will counter the perception that students who remain in the residential colleges are deprived of both the fun and the formative experience of managing things on their own.
• Four-year colleges will provide a natural home for campus-wide student-initiated activities led by members of the colleges, who will have the opportunity to book college facilities for meetings, rehearsals, and performances. Regular use by student organizations of facilities in the four-year colleges will help to make the colleges microcosms of University life. Put differently, the availability in the four-year colleges of attractive facilities that can enrich campus life will help to ensure that the colleges are an asset to all members of the University community.
• The presence in four-year colleges of upperclass students and graduate students makes it more likely that faculty will participate actively in the life of the college. Older students are more experienced at talking easily and comfortably with faculty members, and faculty members, in turn, find it more natural to communicate with them. Older students will provide an essential bridge between faculty fellows and younger students.

The staff of the four-year colleges should recognize that activities that are appropriate for freshmen and sophomores may not always be of greatest interest to juniors and seniors. To take one example, trips that are most likely to draw freshmen and sophomores are often oriented to socialization, acclimatization, and cultural discovery and enrichment. By contrast, trips for junior and seniors may often be oriented toward future career goals. Discussion tables for freshmen and sophomores might naturally focus on preparation for medical school or planning for study abroad. Discussion tables for juniors and seniors might focus more often on career-planning, fellowships, and graduate and professional school.

A College Society is an example of a program that could be developed, on a selective basis, for older students to provide a sense that they are moving up in the system. Juniors, seniors, and graduate students in each of the four-year colleges would become members of a College Society featuring some special privileges, special intellectual events, and regular meals with faculty fellows and visitors. The College Society might meet on a monthly basis in the master's residence or in a college dining room. The judicious serving of alcohol to students who are of age could be permitted at College Society events.

The Committee is confident that, given the right structure and supports, the colleges will succeed in creating robust, collegial, intellectually involved communities. Important factors influencing such an outcome are the integration of formal aspects of academic life, such as teaching and advising, into the colleges; a more significant presence of non-undergraduates in daily college life; and physical facilities that support the many functions of a vital college community.

Integration of formal aspects of academic life into the colleges: The Committee recommends that as many classes as possible be held in the colleges, including, but not limited to, freshman seminars, freshman writing seminars, and junior seminars. Informal academic activities, like team and lab group meetings for science and engineering students, and senior thesis writers' groups for all students, might also take place in four-year colleges. The Committee recommends, as well, that as much advising as practicable be conducted in college facilities: advising appointments for freshmen and sophomores, selected advising for juniors and seniors, fellowship advising, some elements of career advising, and writing tutoring, as already described above. The provision of appropriate office and classroom facilities will be the essential prerequisite here. Each college should have two large classrooms, each of which can seat twenty-five students in various configurations (modular furniture would be desirable), as well as a conference room that can accommodate sixteen to eighteen around a single table. While it makes sense for these to be multipurpose rooms that can be used after hours for a variety of meetings and college activities, their role as teaching spaces must be central to their design (for example, blackboards need to be built into the walls, and the rooms need to be fully equipped with audiovisual capacity). In addition, each college should have private office space that can be used in rotation by faculty advisers, fellowship advisers, career advisers, writing tutors, and others who will cycle through the college on a periodic basis.

It would be highly desirable to provide individual, locked carrels for juniors and seniors resident in the four-year colleges. Ideally, they would be grouped together around a common area that could be used as a lounge. These spaces would in themselves help to create a lively intellectual community among upperclass students in the college, and they would be a significant draw in attracting upperclass students to live there.(*3)

Assuring an increased presence of non-undergraduates in daily college life: A number of proposals already made above will help to increase the presence of non-undergraduates in the colleges. We have in mind the plan for ten graduate students in residence, the provision of two apartments for faculty in residence, and the more effective integration of the master's residence into the college. We refer also to the proposal to bring writing tutors into the colleges and to encourage regular visits to the colleges by service offices of the University (e.g., Career Services, Religious Life) as well as by members of the local community and the alumni body who represent different professional careers. As well, the four-year colleges afford an important opportunity to strengthen the college fellows programs.

Physical facilities: As noted above, the Committee believes that a wide range of programs and activities will grow and develop in the residential colleges if the right infrastructure is in place. We have already discussed the "human capital" requirements. Certain physical facilities will also be essential to create vital college communities. To encourage the common life of the colleges, a mix of public meeting and recreational activity spaces should be spread throughout the colleges. These include alcoves and small lounges that encourage casual conversations; a comfortable, well-appointed central common room, preferably directly adjacent to the college dining room; a wide-screen-TV-viewing area; multipurpose meeting/practice spaces; and a café/snack bar/sandwich shop. An ample supply of attractive, quiet study spaces, in close proximity to all dormitory rooms, and a spacious, comfortable, fully wired college library, are also required. Facilities should be strategically located so as to foster community–e.g., study spaces and the café/snack bar/sandwich shop might be located next to laundry rooms. Furnishings should be comfortable and attractive. Small touches, like newspaper and magazine racks in the common room or built-in chessboards in smaller lounges and the café, would aid in creating a collegial atmosphere.

The facilities listed above need to be provided in each of the colleges. The colleges as a group should be part of the University effort to provide more arts performance and rehearsal space, but the distribution of these facilities might vary across colleges. Ideally, each of the four-year colleges would have basic facilities for performance and practice, like a multipurpose performance and activity space with a sprung floor, small practice rooms, an exhibition gallery area, and, if at all possible, a black box theater. Beyond that, however, there might be some specialization of function: Butler, for example, could have the best facilities on campus for music, and Whitman the best facilities for theater (instead of a black box, the Whitman theater might be a fixed-seat theater more analogous to Theater Intime). In every case, the provision of adequate storage space would be essential.

The Committee would like to see fitness facilities in the colleges because this would be another effective way to build a sense of community. It would also augment the resources of the already-overcrowded Stephens Fitness Center in Dillon Gym. We recognize, however, that this is an expensive proposition. Whether it is feasible to build and staff fully-outfitted fitness centers (or more modestly equipped facilities) in each of the colleges, or in pairs of colleges, remains to be evaluated.

We would observe, finally, that the exterior spaces within and adjacent to the colleges are important ingredients in programming and community-building. The Committee was impressed by the suggestions in the Prospects02 competition for imaginative use of the Whitman College courtyards, for fluid movement from interior to exterior spaces, and for the possibility of constructing an amphitheater on the hill between Dillon and Whitman.

(*3) Innovative design will be critical here in order to avoid a set of cubicles with perpetually closed doors, on the one hand, and an adjacent noisy area in which no one can concentrate, on the other.