When administrators implemented a new route for the green line shuttle last September, some graduate students believed the new route was designed to create “a ginormous ‘P’ on campus,” Hilary Bergsieker GS, a member of the Graduate Student Government (GSG) ...(back to the article)
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I applaud Bergseiker, Collins and Dwoskin for their hard work in designing, implementing and analyzing the survey. This is public goods provision at its finest, and I for one will "take to the streets" should administrators not internalize the survey's clear signals.
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No but seriously, go away
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Dear "We Don't Take Kindly To Ur Kind Round Here": Princeton is a RESEARCH university, not merely a teaching university. The it's ability both to recruit and to produce the most talented researchers is deeply intertwined with its ability to recruit talented grad students. Despite what you may believe, your famous professors did not come here for the privilege of teaching you - they came to work with other accomplished academics and graduate students. I should also remind you that while you pay the university to come here, Princeton pays us.
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graduate students' (obviously) my apologies
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"Meeting graduate students’ quotidian needs" This is a very strange construction. "Quotidian" in a very literal sense does mean "daily," but its connotations of ordinariness or, worse, triviality are distracting here. "Meeting graduate student's daily needs" would be much better. The author is trying to communicate that transportation is an important issue because it is one that graduate students must face every day. "Quotidian" makes it all seem very trivial, in which case why should we be concerned?
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A total lack of consultation with the students affected? That's just plain bad management. Never mind the substance of the new transportation plan -- it's outrageous how dismissive the administration has been of the people most impacted by their plans.
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I knew I should have gone to Stanford for grad school.
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I don't know why the university asks for imput from its students or its employees--I've been here for over 16 years and there has never been a case where "our" words have been heeded. It's all lip service on the part of the administration--quite amazing--for people who are supposed to be so smart, how can their solutions be so ludicrous!
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The GSG was strongarmed by the university to not publicize the new route widely. Thats why it is not easily accessible. Although there are no links to it, the new route is available here: http://www.princeton.edu/~gsg/2008/shuttlesurvey/shuttlesurveymaps.html
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Is this new shuttle plan available to see anywhere? I couldn't find a link in the article or by Googling. Until I moved out from university housing a year ago, the shuttle did a great job of getting me from Lawrence to the CS building. Why is the dinky station being made the transportation hub when Frist is designed (through the campus plan) to be a 5min walk from everything?
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This school was not meant for grad students. Stop taking our dorms on campus and go back over there, wherever you guys go.
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What is it with this entitlement attitude that makes one believe that public transportation should basically bring him directly from his home doorstep to his work doorstep in minimal time? It's like these people have never taken public transportation before. Geez!
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WALK PEOPLE! WALK!!! Princeton was designed as a walking/biking campus. Get off your fat asses and walk. Princeton isn't exactly the size of Rutgers or Penn State or Cornell. It's about 1 mi x 1 mi square. In the worst case, take a shuttle to the center of campus and walk. Maybe grad students would be happier if they did a little more exercising -- like walking to class/work. Exercise releases endorphines that make you feel better about yourself. And don't give me crap about inclement weather -- there are things called umbrellas and jackets. Also, don't give me crap about handicap issues, because they have their own provisions and 99% of shuttle riders are not handicapped. And don't accuse me of being an insensitive undergrad -- I am a grad student...who walks to work.
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I'm actually surprised they managed to mention "staff" at least once. I've stood and waited for 20 minutes to get either to my car or my office. I can't live on campus or anywhere close by. If I did, I'd most likely use a bike unless it was snowing or raining. Can't blame the shuttle drivers -- it's the "improved" route through already backed up Nassau Street.
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I read this, and I'm thankful I have never lived on campus. Keep treating grad students like this, and expect more bitterness towards the University. No wonder grad students don't donate.
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<< “What are they going to drive and where are they going to park?” he asked. >> So, in other words, no need to bother doing anything to improve the service: graduate students have no viable alternatives. This article displays -- and it would be hard to hide -- the extraordinary level of high-handed contempt displayed by certain administrators for the daily life of the campus they manage. In the case of the shuttle system, a series of changes designed to placate this campus's vocal and wealthy neighbors have resulted in a shuttle that's becoming more and more useless for its actual graduate student ridership. When the shuttle moved from an efficient route running on several less-trafficked streets because of complaints from the local homeowners that its passage troubled their precious quiet, the fig leaves of "access to Nassau St. shopping" and "connecting to NJ Transit" were used to conceal the changes' true purpose. (The Nassau St. shuttle stop is just as far from Palmer Square and central Princeton as the previous William St. stop, and none of the shuttle's riders use NJ Transit buses regularly; these were transparently post-hoc rationalizations cooked up by administrators.) It's clear that we graduate students are a population that these administrators have no interest in serving, whereas the nearby suburbanites are given concession after concession by a university that sometimes seems to have forgotten who is part of its intellectual life and who just lives nearby because it does good things for their property values.
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"Breitman also said he doubts that a large fraction of graduate students will switch from using public transportation to personal vehicles for getting around Princeton, even if they do dislike the new plan. “What are they going to drive and where are they going to park?” he asked." So because many graduate students can't afford cars, and because there is no on-campus parking, our opinions irrelevant? The dismissive, condescending attitude suggested by this quote from Mr. Breitman is incredibly frustrating.
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If the University proceeds with its asinine plan, it will be a clusterf*ck of enormous proportions. Every grad student on campus can see this -- why can't any of these administrators?
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"The route reduced shuttle frequency and efficiency, she explained, adding that administrators did not share the plans for the new routes with the committee until less than 12 hours before the changes went into effect." ----- Do they have some kind of allergy to asking students for input?
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