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LBJ
An Interview with the President of the USG
Paul Kingsbery
Paul Kingsbery: I just wanted to ask you about the e-mail that you sent out regarding student and the race survey. It seemed very passionate; what prompted you to write the e-mail?
Leslie Bernard-Joseph: Tuesday night at the USG excom meeting, we were talking about what to do about the race survey and the discussion in general was very good. We spoke for over for half and hour or so campus topics in general. And we talked about what we can actually do with the race survey, and how we can actually go on and approach groups about the changes we would like to see happen, and where they saw their responsibility in being involved. And we talked about how we were going to get everyone to read the survey, and so we shot around some ideas like fliers on campus with statistics. But the consensus was reached that I should send out another e-mail to get people to read it. At the meeting I said, “Well what do you want on the e-mail?” The response was that it should be something semi-controversial in order to get people to read it, and I said I had no problem doing that. The funny thing is I actually e-mailed five USG people to have them look over it for content and spelling and things like that, and there were a few responses from [students] who thought it was telling them what to do or that I was angry, but everyone I spoke to on the USG thought it was fine. And then there was another group of students who said it was good and thanked me for sending out a passionate e-mail.
PCK: I read the report and it seemed to me that most of the content of the report was pretty much known as common knowledge. Do you think it reveals anything new about the situation?
LBJ: I think it did in terms of sheer numbers but not in terms of the overall feel. I personally felt that there wasn’t too much new information, but just seeing put in numbers what percentage of the students had never been to the Fields center or how other groups felt the campus was integrated just going down the scale of every single race and I guess the most surprising one for me was the mean averages of how different races viewed their faculty support. I do agree with you that there was nothing too shocking, but I feel that that’s just caused by the fact that we are living this everyday.
PCK: So you’d say that the primary purpose of the report was just getting students talking about the problems?
LBJ: Yeah, that was part of the point. Brandon Parry, the U-Councilor excon member, made a very good point when he said that the first thing that has to happen for anything to change is that people have to start talking about it. If no one talks about it, then no one is going to care. The primary purpose of the report is to shed light on the situation so that students and especially administrators have enough information so that they can address the problems, instead of re-discussing them every four years.
PCK: What is your overall impression of the dialogue about the report? Did you feel that people weren’t talking about the race survey?
LBJ: It wasn’t that I didn’t think anyone was talking about it, I just wanted to make sure everybody was talking about it, to get as many people as possible to start talking about it, and to get more people to read the race report. My impression of the dialogue? I don’t know, by virtue of my being in the thick of things, I don’t always get the opportunity to hear what people are saying about it. I guess my sense is that there is a significant group of people on campus who don’t care, but at the same time, I think there are a lot of people who do really care about the issue and the general consensus is, we have a problem, what exactly do we do now?
PCK: A lot of people did seem to take the survey, more than twice national voter turnout, but it seems like there are a lot of people who didn’t respond. Are there any plans to do another survey, this time with more people involved?
LBJ: I would say no. Fifty-three percent is a huge number for a campus survey. It is the highest number for any survey that has been conducted on Princeton’s campus, to my knowledge. I don’t think it would be any more beneficial to conduct another survey with one hundred percent of the campus, especially since this group was very representative of the student body. Also, surveys have been done like this in the past and the results are really similar.
PCK: Did you say that people responded to your e-mail, people in general or USG people? You said that half of them were angry?
LBJ: Yeah, I got a lot of responses. Not half of them were angry, I got about three angry e-mails, and then a lot of people on campus saying in person saying it seemed like a really angry e-mail but I asked how you can judge a tone by the words? I think people who don’t know me personally definitely took the e-mail differently than people who interact with me.
PCK: Another question I wanted to ask you is about the USG resolution about proxy votes for the investment of the endowment. What made the USG get involved in this issue?
LBJ: I think part of it was that we just wanted to put a bit more pressure on the resources committee of the CPUC committee, just to say, “As you’re making your decision to tell the Trustees whether or not to take up this issue, we want to say that the students wants to see a committee that makes sure the University’s investment is ethical and socially conscious.
PCK: Was there any polling of the student body to ensure that the resolution was supported by the students?
LBJ: Such as a straw poll?
PCK: Yeah, a straw poll or a campus-wide poll?
LBJ: No, PCAIR, which is Princeton Committee Advocating Investment Responsibility, right now has a petition with three hundred or four hundred signatures, and at the end of the day it’s sort of our jobs to know what the students are thinking. We are the representatives of the student body and if we have to ask every time we want to do something or if we have our hands held, then that means that we’re not in touch with the student body and that’s a problem.
PCK: And you do think the USG is fairly representative?
LBJ: What do you mean by fairly representative?
PCK: Well so far, you’ve said that the USG should be representative of the student body. But is it, practically speaking, actually representative?
LBJ: I think that we should represent the student body and should know their opinions and in doing so shouldn’t have to ask every time we want to do something and it would be annoying if we every time we considered an issue, you had to hear from the USG. That’s what we’re there for, to know what’s going on. Is the USG itself representative of the student body? I don’t think it’s as diverse as the student body. No matter how I say this, it’s going to come off wrong, but there are more members of the USG in one eating club than in the rest of the USG, more members in bicker clubs. It’s definitely a skewed representation.
XL: What kinds of students would you encourage to do USG in the future?
LBJ: What kind of students? The kind of students that I want to see on the USG are the people who don’t want to do it just because it’s cool or just because they were on student government in high school, and they want to do student government again, but because they perceive a problem on campus that they’ve thought about and say, “Wow, I’m tired of sitting around thinking about it, I want to make a difference, I want to make a change.” Those are the kind of students who should do USG; just because you’re well-spoken or you’re smart or you’ve done this before doesn’t mean you should be on USG. To be on student government, to make Princeton a better place, you have to, one, know Princeton, two, also know what’s wrong with it, and, three, have ideas about how to change it and make Princeton a better place.
PCK: I notice in the last election, a lot of people talking about things that didn’t seem incredibly important, in comparison to the race survey, such as a 24 hour study space. It seems to me that one problem is that less important issues can overshadow the more important issues.
LBJ: I think the reason the less important issues overshadow the real issues is that they’re easier to change. The people want to say, I did this, this, and this, but to some extent you have to say, “Well, I don’t think those are important.” And I think those overshadow [other issues] because people want to know what you are going to get done. People respond that they’re going to get certain things done but those things aren’t always the biggest issues. Everyone is always saying, in USG, that you only have one year to change this campus, but, if you really look, a lot of them have been there for two, three, or four years. There’s more time than one year, and as much as I only have one year in there now, I’d like to see the freshman that are there to carry on the issues that they really care about, and try to change the issues in the long run, because they’re not going to change over night.
PCK: What is your personal take on Princeton’s social scene, as in the Street culture, and what alternatives is the USG working on now?
LBJ: There’s no denying that the Street is the central social scene in Princeton, there’s no getting around it, no matter how much you’d like to, so it’s part of Princeton. It’s part of the history of Princeton, and it will always be part of Princeton’s future, and I think it always should because they are part of what differentiates us from our peer institutions, from the other schools in the Ivy League. But, especially now with this report just being released, I feel like we should take it upon ourselves, to see that the Street has a greater responsibility; because they are the quintessential Princeton experience, we have to ensure that everyone gets to know them, and that everyone gets to feel a part of that.
PCK: What can be done to ensure that people get to be a part of club life?
LBJ: In the long-term, I think eating club financial aid needs to be exactly what it is on paper. Right now, you’re not going to get those four thousand dollars from the dining hall contract equally transferable to a club, like they make it seem in the financial aid office. That’s not what really happens. Money for upperclassman students is made available through a surplus in your account. So, let’s say you come back in the fall, you’d think that whatever you used to eat before is what should be available through a surplus in your account. But you’re not going to come back with four thousand dollars in your student account, what they give you is maybe twelve hundred dollars pretty much maximum across the board, and this is what you’ll use to eat. Then there’s the parent contribution with which they say, your mom should give you the four thousand dollar to eat in a club. Now, if you’re on full financial aid, there’s no way your parents are going to give you a check for four thousand dollars at the beginning of the year, especially since they’ve probably not had to pay that much from the beginning, and now seeing the most generous bill so far, and say that’s fine. That’s a problem; don’t say we’re going to get equally transferable money for an eating club, because that’s not true. I asked my financial aid officer in September what would happen if right now I wanted to switch to a meal plan and she said that my package would be reworked, and probably it would be paid for. I also think there should be a specific club on the Street that’s just for everyone. I’d like to see the school take back Elm or Dial and turn it into a place for students. Make it an upper class eating club that anyone can be a part of, but make it a club that underclassmen can swipe into. Have it be a dry club. A lot of money is thrown around for the Alcohol Initiative, but I feel that a lot of money is wasted because it depends on how good the event is. If you have a specific structure and a place that will always be open, it would be a lot more successful. With the Trustee’s initiative, they’re trying to combat alcoholism on campus, but you can’t combat a problem that’s been there for hundreds of years with sporadic events in Whig or the Fields Center or in the residential colleges. You have to have a space for that. We act like they don’t know how to throw a party without alcohol; if the only way we can socialize with each other is if we’re inebriated, then that’s a problem. The Fields Center, which is typically associated with only Black or Hispanic students should take the opposite route to say that being multi-cultural is not just being colored. I’d like to see study breaks thrown at the Fields Center by the College Democrats and the College Republicans, and campus-wide study breaks thrown at Cottage and at TI. Just having campus-wide study breaks, in those types of places that make them feel more inclusive, so everyone can feel comfortable there.
Paul Kingsbery is a Sophomore and intended English major from Short Hills, New Jersey.
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