January 24, 2001: Features

Slowly, the distance between graduate and undergraduate colleges is shrinking

By Maria LoBiondo

The scene: Late 1950s. On a whim, John M. Schnorrenberg *64 auditions for Theatre Intime and wins the part of the Sheriff in The Rainmaker. This achievement, rubbing shoulders in Marquand Library, and meetings through the Episcopal Campus Ministry, are the sum of his interactions with undergraduates on campus. “I think I was more of an observer of the undergraduate community than one involved in it,” remembers the University of Alabama professor of art history.

Flash forward to 2000: Asli Bali *96, earning her doctorate in politics, manages membership in three campus organizations with a mixed graduate-undergraduate membership: the Turkish Society, the Arab Society, and the Muslim Students Association. She has taken Arab language classes with undergraduates and informally tutored them in math and writing. “If you make an effort, there’s an opportunity to get to know undergraduates,” she says.

Woodrow Wilson was right. In the 100 years since Princeton’s 13th president, a member of the undergraduate class of 1879, lost his fight over the location of the Graduate College, demographics and social change have made him look prescient.

Wilson’s turn-of-the-century opponent, the Graduate School’s first dean, Andrew Fleming West 1874, envisioned graduate scholars in contemplative study far from the bustle of undergraduate life, and so pushed for a separate campus, capped with a tower, located high above the golf course. Wilson, in contrast, saw graduate students as vital members of the immediate Princeton family, engaged regularly in academic and social discourse with undergraduates. He strongly felt that the Graduate College should be set in the very center of the existing Princeton campus.

West, however, managed to find a number of donors, including one who left his entire estate -- first valued at $3 million, though later found to be worth much less -- to support West’s cause. That bequest was the final blow to Wilson and his dream for an academically integrated community, and, battered by an earlier defeat over the eating clubs and the national press attention his feud with West was attracting, Wilson resigned from Princeton in 1910. Construction on West’s College -- high above the golf course -- began the following year.
For much of the Graduate School’s history, the divide between the graduate and undergraduate worlds, underscored by the College’s locale, has remained as West envisioned. In recent years, however, Princeton has been quietly and deliberately moving toward Wilson’s original notion of community. But there’s still a long way to go.

The remnants of the Wilson/West controversy and Princeton's ambivalence toward graduate education - its peer institutions jumped into the game much earlier and built professional schools to fortify their positions - remain to this day. Stereotypes of each other - of hard-drinking undergraduates and nerdy grad students - linger. In a 1998 Daily Princetonian column, then-graduate student Molly Robinson *00 told of a chance encounter with a freshman who seemed surprised to learn that there were graduate students at Princeton at all. That same year the conservative student newspaper, the Spectator, blamed increased graduate

student teaching for Princeton's one-rung slip in the college rankings. And some undergraduates, when they think of graduate students at all, see them as competitors for professors' time and energy.

But more damaging, say graduate alumni and current graduate students, is the sense of second-class citizenship many graduate students experience while on campus. "Princeton continues to be a place where the community is focused on undergraduates, rather than one that embraces all constituencies. Getting an advanced degree is a tough process to begin with - you get beaten up intellectually and emotionally. The perception of graduate students as any less vital than undergraduates to Princeton, its reputation, and its future does not help matters," says Todd J. Mitty *93, current Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni (APGA) president. "Part of what attracts faculty to Princeton is the caliber of graduate students. Princeton wouldn't be the same without its undergraduates - or its graduate students."

MaryMargaret Halsey, director of Graduate Alumni Relations and Development, says that graduate students make Princeton Princeton - a college that also happens to be a world-class research institution. But still, she says, "The graduate students know they're important to the faculty, but the way the graduate students feel, the separateness, is like the maleness of the place. It's in the woodwork. But it is getting better." She adds, "If we weren't so successful in our dealings with undergraduates, the contrast with how graduates feel wouldn't seem so striking."

Reminders that graduate students are treated like distant relatives rather than immediate family members begin with where the graduate students live. Of the 1,766 graduate students on campus for the 2000--01 academic year, 516 are at the Graduate College complex, and 806 are in university apartments, leaving 444 to find housing elsewhere. This is a point of contention between graduate students and the university administration, one that has included picketing by the graduate students and consideration by the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC).

"So much of Princeton's social life is residential," says P. J. Kim '01, past president of the Undergraduate Student Government. "It's difficult to have a spontaneous moment or build connections when the graduate students live so far away."

Subtle things, some social, some institutional, also create barriers: Graduate students must pay to attend athletic and many cultural events (undergraduates' activities' fees cover their costs; this year, in celebration of the Centennial, football games were free for grad students, and grads were included in the Passport for the Arts cultural plan, a free ticket program for perform-ances at McCarter Theatre and Richardson Auditorium). The APGA first organized Reunions activities in 1976; including graduate students in the campus telephone directory didn't begin until the early 1990s. Jimmy Stewart '32 and James Baker III '52 are household names; Nobel laureates John Bardeen *36 and Richard P. Feynman *42 are not. While a young undergraduate alumnus is elected to serve as a trustee annually, only one member of the entire board is required to be from the graduate alumni body.

And then there is the asterisk after graduate alumni names. "To too many it is a visible symbol that graduate students are considered second class or less than essential," says Barry Munitz *68, who is beginning a four-year tenure as a term trustee of the university. "It's like Roger Maris's asterisk for his home run. The implication is that you're not really a Princetonian."

For many, that asterisk received after graduation has been symbolic of their lives while students. It was a life almost wholly separate from the undergraduate experience.

"There was a presumption that much of campus and most campus facilities were for undergraduates," remembers Richard Heitman *61. "It wasn't until my last year on campus that I found out about Chancellor Green [Student Center]."

"Undergrads played organized intramurals; grad students tended to organize their own, less structured games. In philosophy, we had touch football, basketball, and softball games. But with the exception of an occasional game against the philosophy faculty or history grad students, it was a strictly philosophy grad game," adds Richard Grandy *67.

Even as recently as 10 years ago, interaction with undergraduates - if indeed a graduate student had any time for it - was minimal. "Graduate students were like phantoms sneaking around the edges of campus. We knew they were doing stuff that was more sophisticated, but we didn't know what that was," reflects Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco '90, who was introduced to her husband, a graduate alumnus from the music department, after graduation by undergraduate friends in New York City.

Her husband, Steven Sacco *91, had a somewhat different experience. "Most of my friends were undergraduates because I came straight from Juilliard, and a lot of the graduate students in my department were older and married," he explains. Still, he recalls a party at which his wife was introduced as being a Princetonian, but he was not.

Interaction between graduate students and undergraduates

isn't the only problem. Graduate students have long had limited social options even among themselves. West's idea of a secluded graduate life may have been appropriate 100 years ago, when Princeton was all male, when all advanced degree scholars were housed in the Gothic splendor of the Graduate College, and when the pursuit of a life in academia - which all graduate students sought - resembled a higher, monk-like calling.

But times are changing. The numbers of graduate students have grown, from the intimate corps of 113 who all dined wearing black robes in Procter Hall in 1921 to the diverse group of 1,884 of today. Not only did Princeton finally open its doors to women - and did so first with graduate education; Sabra Follett Meservey received her doctorate in philosophy in 1966 - but it has also increasingly drawn married students (Meservey was a mother of three) and students from other countries (42 percent of the graduate community is international, versus 9 percent for undergraduates). In addition, nearly half of Princeton's graduate students go on to careers outside academia. These changes have steadily eroded West's ivory tower view of graduate life.

"When I was looking at graduate schools, one Princeton graduate alumnus said to me that Princeton was academically great but socially a bit of a monastery. Its only saving grace was that New York City was an hour away," says Adrian Banner, chair of the Graduate College house committee. "But ever since I've been here I've noticed it's gotten better."

That, in large part, has been through a concerted administrative effort to sponsor graduate students' social activities, rather than try to mix graduate and undergraduate social interests. The Graduate College house committee hosts a dizzying number of events, including three annual dances, discussion tables, and bus trips to New York City. The subscription to the e-mail event list is open, and some undergraduates do subscribe, says Ulrich Struve *91, the Graduate College's residence life coordinator, but few are active participants.

"We're putting a lot more focus on creating opportunities for people to meet each other and to introduce students to the various campus resources. There's a lot more awareness and consciousness in the institution that we have to make these opportunities more visible for the grad students," says F. Joy Montero, associate dean of the graduate school.

But interaction between graduate students and their undergraduate counterparts is moving more slowly. In part, that's because the two groups of students are usually at different points in their lives. Graduate students are older; they may be married; their schedules may more closely resemble a typical work week. Some may not have much desire to get to know undergraduates socially.

"I had already been married for five years when I arrived at Princeton in 1976," recalls Gary Larsen *79. "My life revolved pretty much around that and around the graduate students I knew from the history department and life in Butler apartments."

"In a lot of ways, graduate students have their own community. I'm not involved with clubs, and most undergraduates I've met are from the lab or in classes I've taught. When I have free time, mostly I want to relax," says Cynthia Tobery *96, who is pursuing a molecular biology doctorate.

While Princeton does not employ large numbers of teaching or research assistants from its graduate school ranks, there are those who fill those roles, and they find that this can bring either an added barrier, or a new opportunity, for interaction with undergraduates. "There's a natural antagonism with your grader," admits Banner. "Some have bridged the gap, say if an assistant in instruction (AI) has a discussion group. Then he or she may bond with undergraduate students."

"I had very little social interaction with undergraduates, but precepting was one of the best experiences I had at Princeton," agrees David W. Paul *73. "It increased my respect for undergraduates and helped me get to know many more than I would otherwise have known."

Having graduate students as assistant masters in the residential colleges - two in each of the five colleges, a practice that began systematically in 1985 - also has helped ease the divide. Molly Robinson, who was an assistant master in Butler College, says, "In many ways, graduate students are in an ideal position to serve as role models and mentors for undergraduates: We are usually pretty close to them in age, but have a few more years of experience. Working as an assistant master helped me to learn how Princeton really works, and to feel that I was a part of the life of the university."

But the small breakthroughs in the invisible social barrier between undergraduate and graduate students have come from intangibles: rubbing shoulders in extracurricular activities, especially in groups united over cultural, religious, or political beliefs; graduate student columnists writing regularly in the Daily Princetonian and increased coverage of graduate issues there; and the opening of the Frist Campus Center as a place where all university members can meet and socialize.

"Frist is a great space, where there aren't any divisions. We share rooms with the undergraduates. A conscious effort was made to encourage interaction," says Lauren Hale, chair of the Graduate Student Government.

Things won't change by waving a wand, says Graduate School Dean John F. Wilson, but he and others affiliated with the school hope that momentum is moving in its favor, especially with the celebration of the Graduate School Centennial. With the Centennial, administrators, current graduate students, and graduate alumni are trying to make even greater progress toward making graduate students and alumni not an afterthought, but truly part of the campus community. "This is a defining moment for all Princetonians to reinforce their commitment to the Graduate School and to improving the important role of graduate students and graduate alumni," APGA president Mitty says. "Princeton creates an attachment that you want to respond to."

That's a notion Woodrow Wilson understood all too well 100 years ago.

Maria LoBiondo is a freelance writer in Princeton and frequent contributor to PAW.