PrincetonUniversity
 

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

III. Recommendations

We turn now to the Committee's specific recommendations, which we have divided into four categories: advising and staffing, programming, housing, and dining. We describe the facilities that support the particular function or objective in the context of each recommendation.

   A. Advising and Staffing

We claimed at the outset of this report that the new college plan would permit more effective interchange between students and faculty members, better advising of all undergraduates, fuller integration of the academic enterprise and the residential setting, and greater exploitation of the broad educational potential inherent in the residential setting. Advising and staffing are critical ingredients in the achievement of these central objectives.

Master: The residential college master is a senior member of the faculty who devotes half of his or her time to the leadership of the college and the other half to teaching and other departmental responsibilities. The master sets the tone for the college, provides intellectual and programmatic vision and direction, and leads the college staff in realizing the many objectives for the residential college community.

We know from experience at other institutions that the proximity and ease of casual involvement of the master makes a real difference in building community in the residential setting. Princeton has been constrained in this respect by the housing stock on which we have been able to draw for masters' residences. The Forbes master's house is two doors down from the college, on Alexander Road, and the Mathey and Rockefeller masters' houses, both on University Place, are across the street from college facilities. But the Butler master's house, also on University Place, is at some distance from the college, and the Wilson master's house, on Prospect Avenue beyond the eating clubs, is much further away. The latter two, especially, make it difficult for the master to function as effectively as we would like.

The Committee recommends that new masters' residences be constructed for Whitman, Butler, and Wilson Colleges. Those residences may be contiguous to or built in the closest possible proximity to their colleges; in either event, it is essential that they be visually integrated into the colleges, and that they include ample private space for family life and ample public space for college functions, with a clear demarcation between the two. (The latter should include, for example, a large living room, an industrial-strength kitchen, and a large dining room.) The residence should have easy public access from the college as well as a private egress in proximity to a roadway. Public space in the master's house should be used regularly for college-wide open houses, for entertainment of and meetings with particular college constituencies (e.g., individual RA groups, RAs and MAAs, college council, college staff), and as a venue for more intimate gatherings for upperclass students, graduate students, and faculty fellows.

An important issue is whether sufficient numbers of senior faculty members will be willing to undertake the master's job if it entails living on campus. We feel that making the master's quarters truly attractive is critical in this context -- faculty are not going to give up pleasant homes in return for substantially less pleasant living environments. Ultimately, though, we believe that having masters' residences in direct proximity to the colleges will actually make it easier to recruit masters because it will make it less difficult for masters to do their jobs. With this in mind, we note the importance of providing appropriate support for the extensive entertaining that masters will do in their houses.

Residential College Dean and Director of Studies: As is currently the case, residential college deans and directors of studies will continue to have responsibility for academic advising and implementation of academic regulations for the freshmen and sophomores in the residential colleges. The quality of the interaction between freshmen and sophomores and their deans and directors of studies is one of the most important achievements of the residential college system. The deans and directors of studies advise individual students on all aspects of their academic programs and progress toward the major, as well as on a wide range of personal matters. They interact with students, also, in the context of discipline and significant personal crises. They see their students frequently in the dining room and join them in a wide range of college activities.

Given the strong foundation of the relationship forged in the first two years, the Committee believes that the new college system provides the opportunity to extend these beneficial interactions to juniors and seniors. As we suggested earlier, we see a compelling case for decentralizing into the colleges responsibility for the academic advising and personal support now provided for juniors and seniors in deans' offices in West College. Juniors and seniors may be more likely to seek advice from deans and directors of studies they already know; those administrators, in turn, will have a longer history and a fuller context in which to understand the issues that may arise for individual students in their junior and senior years. The familiarity of the dean and director of studies with juniors and seniors will lead naturally to many informal opportunities for academic guidance. The link to the dean and director of studies will, of course, also provide a strong ongoing connection between juniors and seniors and the residential colleges.

The proposed decentralization responds, too, to the injunction of the Wythes Committee that the expansion of the undergraduate student body not diminish the quality of the services we currently provide. No matter how hard-working and conscientious deans may be, there is a finite limit to the hours available to address the needs of the students in their charge. Adding 125 more juniors and 125 more seniors to the portfolios of the junior and senior class deans in the Office of the Dean of the College would inevitably reduce either the proportion of students needing attention who could be seen in a timely fashion, or the time and effort that could be devoted to assisting any one of them. Shifting primary responsibility for the advising needs of juniors and seniors to deans and directors of studies in the residential colleges will enhance the likelihood that we can maintain, if not enhance, the quality of the advice and support we currently provide.

The proposed decentralization would not change the academic departments' primary responsibility for the academic advising of their concentrators. In addition, the Office of the Dean of the College would continue to have general oversight of academic advising for juniors and seniors -- as it does currently for freshmen and sophomores -- to ensure the equitable application of University policies.

The Committee recommends that the dean of the college and the dean of undergraduate students work with colleagues in their offices and in the residential colleges to investigate carefully the ways in which such recasting of responsibilities might best be accomplished.

If responsibility for the academic progress of juniors and seniors were to be added to the portfolios of the residential college deans and directors of studies (thus effectively doubling the number of students in their charge), a significant part of their nonacademic responsibilities would need to be assumed by other members of the college staffs. The Committee sees a strong argument for creating a new position in the colleges to oversee discipline for students resident in the colleges, an enhanced residential education program, and other significant student life commitments. This new position -- perhaps called director of residential life -- could also have responsibility for oversight of the resident advisers and minority affairs advisers, a function currently performed by the assistant masters, and for oversight of the college council, a function currently performed by the college administrator and the assistant masters. Giving the director of residential life responsibility for the resident advisers and minority affairs advisers would simplify and rationalize communication channels and reporting structures and would allow for more consistency and effectiveness in the oversight and support of these very important undergraduate staff members.

With the increasing complexity of student life issues, the Committee sees real advantages in having an experienced student life professional in each of the colleges. Universities today confront an array of challenges in student life that are different in kind and intensity from those that existed when the residential colleges were first created twenty years ago. Today's undergraduates are much more likely to be dealing with issues relating to complicated family situations, sex, alcohol, and drugs. Further, more so than in the past, they present a variety of learning disabilities and psychological disorders -- among them attention deficit disorders, eating disorders, anxiety and panic disorders, and depression -- and often depend on medication to function. Changes on the national scene, too, make the management of a residential community more complicated than it used to be. We have in mind, for example, the legal environment with respect to disabilities, and the heightened public scrutiny with respect to the ways in which universities deal with alcohol abuse, depression, and other mental health disorders prevalent in the college-age population. Universities are expected to provide substantial support both to students who are dealing with complicated personal issues and to the other students with whom they interact. An experienced student life professional in each of the residential colleges could devote full attention to providing such support, and could, through an enhanced program of residential education, improve the University's services for all of its students. We envision that the new directors of residential life would have a relationship with the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students analogous to the relationship the residential college deans and directors of studies now have with the Office of the Dean of the College.

By proposing the new position of director of residential life, we do not mean to negate the real advantages that have inhered in having a single individual (the director of studies) see the whole student, with academic strengths and achievements, academic difficulties, disciplinary problems, and personal crises handled by one decanal figure. Even though discipline would be transferred to the director of residential life, it would still be the case that the residential college dean and director of studies could deal with students as whole individuals. And we would expect -- especially in complicated cases -- that the dean, director of studies, and director of residential life would function as a team, with the closest communication among them.

These proposed rearrangements in staffing would apply in the two-year as well as the four-year colleges, so that, under the leadership of the faculty master, a residential college dean, a director of studies, and a director of residential life would staff each college.

Again, the Committee encourages the dean of the college and the dean of undergraduate students to explore ways in which redeployment of existing staff, together with modest additional staffing, might permit these new positions to be established with minimal overall growth in administrative positions. We believe that we could obtain three to four of the six proposed positions by redeploying current resources. The appropriateness of modest additional staffing might be reviewed by the Task Force on Administrative Staffing and Services in the context of planning for the expansion of the undergraduate student body.

College office space should be planned in such a way as to accommodate the proposed changes in staffing.

College Administrator and College Secretary: While the basic roles of the college administrator and college secretary will remain the same, the changes proposed above would add significantly to the student traffic in the college office, to the range and complexity of the advising responsibilities discharged and academic records maintained in the colleges, and to the number of administrators requiring support. It would be important to look carefully at the portfolios of the college administrator and college secretary to identify opportunities for redeployment of responsibilities (for example, some of the student life work now done by the college administrator could be transferred to the director of residential life) and to assess whether additional support would be required. Again, the latter possibility ought also to be reviewed by the Task Force on Administrative Staffing and Services in the context of planning for the expansion of the undergraduate student body.

Graduate Students: To date, the principal involvement of graduate students in the residential colleges has come through the work of the two resident assistant masters. Assistant masters have played very valuable roles in supporting the master, the RAs and MAAs, and the college council, but the required half-time commitment often seems or proves to be unduly demanding and certainly dissuades many potential candidates from applying for these positions, in part because their departments are concerned about the effect of such employment on the timely completion of the thesis.

The Committee recommends that the current assistant masterships be discontinued and that the major responsibility of the assistant masters for supervision of the RAs and MAAs be given to the directors of residential life. Furthermore, we recommend that the ten graduate students intended to be resident in each college be given specific, time-limited, programmatic responsibilities in return for subsidized room and board.(*1) Given the intensive demands of graduate study, these duties should consume a maximum of ten hours of work per week, including the expected general interaction with undergraduates over meals and at college functions.

We foresee these graduate students playing a variety of important roles in the colleges. Half of their assignments might be related to academic advising: for example, one graduate student might assist in fellowship advising, another might work as a writing tutor for students in the college, a third might coordinate senior thesis writers' groups, a fourth might help to advise students with particular interests in science, engineering, and medicine, and a fifth might coordinate general academic tutoring in the college. The other half of the assignments might be related to social and cultural activities and residential life: for example, one graduate student might oversee musical activities in the college, a second might manage theater and film, a third might coordinate language and special topics tables, a fourth might assist the college council, and a fifth might work with the director of residential life to support the RAs and MAAs. The precise portfolios would be defined by the colleges and might vary modestly from college to college. Again, this change would apply to the two-year as well as the four-year colleges (which would require some modest reconfiguration of bedroom spaces and provision of private bathrooms in the two-year colleges).

This plan has beneficial effects extending well beyond the designated portfolios for each of the resident graduate students. Among other things, it more effectively integrates graduate students into the residential colleges, thus providing positive, substantive interaction between undergraduates and graduate students. Furthermore, the greater adult presence in the dormitories will likely encourage more responsible behavior among undergraduate residents.

Eliminating the current assistant masterships also overcomes the annual challenge to assemble candidate pools of sufficient depth and quality to ensure strong appointments across the colleges. The limited nature of the responsibilities anticipated for the resident graduate students should convince directors of graduate studies and dissertation supervisors to allow their students to assume these roles. As a side benefit, careful recruiting of resident graduate students, with special emphasis on departments that typically attract smaller numbers of undergraduate concentrators, might have some effect on choices of concentration on the part of sophomores in the college.

We do not view graduate student participation merely as a way to enhance the experience of undergraduates. Graduate students often feel marginalized on campus. Their meaningful participation in residential colleges will make them more integral to the University community and will alleviate the feeling of marginalization. We also believe that active involvement on the part of a relatively small number of graduate students resident in the colleges will lead to a healthier perception of graduate students among undergraduates, and therefore more positive interchanges between the two groups.

Resident Advisers and Minority Affairs Advisers: The Committee has not addressed the range of possibilities for reconfiguring the roles of undergraduate advisers, although we are mindful of the experiment currently underway in Wilson College with residential community advisers who blend both roles. The Committee assumes that these issues will continue to be addressed in the Council of Masters.

The current level of adviser staffing -- 12 RAs and four MAAs in each of the two-year colleges -- may properly be adjusted in the four-year colleges to take account of the reduced number of freshmen and sophomores. One can imagine, for example, that ten RAs and three MAAs might be an adequate level of staffing for the four-year colleges. The Council of Masters will be best able to carry forward this discussion in the context of its continuing consideration of any future adjustments in the configuration of the adviser programs.

Faculty in residence: Eliminating the position of assistant master has the positive side effect of vacating two apartments in or close to each of the existing residential colleges. Such apartments ought also to be built in Whitman College. The Committee recommends that they be used for faculty in residence -- younger faculty members, visiting faculty members, post-docs in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts or the Council on Science and Technology, fellows in the University Center for Human Values or the Law and Public Affairs Program, and others. The history of Forbes College, the only existing college with a guest suite, suggests that the engagement of such individuals in the life of the college enriches the experience of the student members of the college. These apartments would be part of the University's rental housing stock. Individuals living in college apartments would pay rent to the University, but would be invited to take meals with the students, would have all privileges of fellows of the college, and would be invited to contribute to the life of the college in a way that matched their particular interests.(*2)

Faculty advisers and faculty fellows: AB freshmen and sophomores will continue to be advised by faculty academic advisers selected and coordinated by the residential college dean and director of studies. BSE freshmen and sophomores will continue to be advised by faculty academic advisers in the School of Engineering, with oversight from the associate dean for undergraduate affairs in the School. As much of this advising as possible ought to take place in the colleges, and it is important to provide offices for that purpose which advisers might use on a rotational basis.

Advisers will be fellows of the colleges, as will other faculty members and administrators upon the invitation of the colleges. The incorporation into the colleges of juniors, seniors, and graduate students promises to strengthen and enhance the college fellows programs. (The vital fellows program at Stevenson Hall from the 1970s through the 1990s stands as an instructive model.) Faculty are more accustomed to communicating with older students, whom they see regularly in the context of independent work, and they will be more likely to come to colleges where their advisees are residents or affiliates. Older students, in turn, are more likely to feel comfortable inviting faculty to meals and other activities in the colleges, and they will facilitate the interchange between faculty and younger students. Colleges may wish to augment their fellows programs by developing relationships with one of the many institutes and centers on campus with visiting fellows, who could be named college fellows, dine in the colleges, and have access to college facilities for programs of their institute or center.

Presently, each of the colleges has a senior fellow, a nonresident faculty member who functions generally as a member of the college staff. The senior fellow works closely with the master to bring speakers to the college and integrate the other fellows into the intellectual and cultural life of the college. Senior fellows have made important contributions to the colleges. But we recognize that we will need to make difficult decisions in setting priorities going forward, and we believe that the new staffing we are proposing above needs to take precedence. Should it be necessary to eliminate the position of senior fellow as part of the reorganization required to make that staffing possible, we believe that the new college plan provides other ways to enhance the intellectual life of the colleges. For example, we believe that the college masters could be expected to resume responsibility for the fellows programs, as was the case earlier in the history of the college system.

Specialized advising: The advent of four-year colleges will afford the opportunity to expand and strengthen specialized advising. Here are several examples:

1. Writing: The Committee recommends that each college have a writing tutor on site. Whether this is to be accomplished through some decentralization of the functions of the Writing Center, or whether it will augment the resources of the Writing Center, remains to be worked out in consultation with the director of the Princeton Writing Program. The college writing tutor would hold general-purpose writing workshops as well as more specialized writing workshops targeted at independent work for juniors and seniors. The college writing tutor would be available, as well, for one-on-one tutoring. The college writing tutor would be trained by the Princeton Writing Program. One of the graduate students in residence might qualify to serve as the principal college writing tutor. Alternatively, s/he could assist a writing tutor deployed to the college by the Princeton Writing Program.
2. Fellowship advising: The Committee believes that the University’s support for students entering national fellowship competitions can be improved significantly by decentralizing some responsibility for fellowship advising into the residential colleges. One benefit is that we can do a more effective job of spotting talent -- that is, we can start very early to identify students who should be cultivated as potential fellowship candidates and encouraged to apply. A second benefit is that we can do a much more effective job of supporting students in fellowship competitions when one individual (presumably the residential college dean or director of studies) knows the student very well and has followed his/her development over four years. Fellowship advising provides a good example of the concrete ways in which continuing affiliation of all juniors and seniors with their college of origin (or, in the case of students in four-year college, college of residence) can pay real dividends to our students. The responsibility for coordinating fellowship advising may continue to reside in the Office of the Dean of the College, but a great deal of the work on the ground can be accomplished more effectively through the residential colleges.
3. Specialized advising events: The Committee imagines that a range of specialized advising events will be held in the colleges and will be targeted to the needs of different segments of the college population -- for example, time management and study skills sessions for freshmen; majors’ nights for freshmen and sophomores; meet-the-departmental-representative lunches for sophomores and juniors; outside-your-major nights to help upperclass students choose courses for personal enrichment; departmental and divisional independent work research forums for juniors; departmental and divisional senior thesis writers’ groups for seniors.
4. Career advising: The Committee imagines that four-year colleges will afford the opportunity for enhanced career advising in the colleges, through special forums and workshops arranged jointly by the colleges and the Office of Career Services.

In every case, the colleges must have physical spaces that can be used on a rotational basis by college fellows, graduate students in residence, and staff from other offices to conduct the programs, workshops, and advising described above. These spaces should include individual offices that could be used for private consultation, as well as classrooms that could be used for group activities.

(*1) The normal graduate student suite would consist of a bedroom, sitting room/study, and private bath, with provision for a microwave oven, sink, and small refrigerator, but not private kitchens. During vacation periods, graduate students in continuing residence would be able to cook in the dormitory kitchenettes, which, ideally, would be located on hallways in close proximity to their suites. To make it possible for married graduate students to participate in the life of the colleges, two of the ten graduate student suites should be three-room suites (plus private bath). In those unusual instances where colleges wish to have married graduate students with children in residence, they may wish to convert one of the faculty apartments into graduate student housing.

(*2) In certain circumstances, one of the two apartments might be used for a married graduate student with children; see ftn. 1 above.