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E-PrinceThe addition of Spelman building 8 to Whitman College was a major draw this year for upperclassmen eager to have both a kitchen and a meal plan, as the popularity of the independent dining option continues to decline.
The apartment-style ...
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It's not really fair that they get a full kitchen and a meal plan! Why should they get this rare privilege when everyone else has to choose one or the other? Princeton should either upgrade their dorms to make this a consistent option for more people - or drop it. The inconsistencies in Princeton housing are already way too apparent - with some people living in beautiful, newly renovated 200 square foot singles and others in dingy, terrible, squalorly, unrenovated 85 square foot singles. Did they decide to halt the dorm denovation program with the new construction of Whitman and Butler? The interiors of Brown and all of the Slums are way more disgusting and in need of work than the old Butler ever was. But instead the university chose its priorities - demolish the one that's ugly (even though it works great) and don't bother to renovate the old buildings because all the prospective students will see is the pretty outside.
what, did the university pay you to write this article? i'm so glad somebody gets a mealplan, kitchen, and eating club.... since there are independent students who now don't have any of those things but would have if they got to live in spelman 8. the girl you quoted just wanted to live in spelman, she didn't move to whitman draw because she wanted to be in whitman, she did because the way the university took away independent housing from the students meant that was her best chance to have a kitchen. "great success" = bs
@nic: that's not the only reason, you know. The reason they renovate Butler/Whitman/Mathey/Rocky is because they want upperclassmen drawing back into the residential colleges instead of going into upperclass and going with eating clubs. This is probably also why they make the price of shared meal plans so unnecessarily high for eating clubs...
It's interesting, isn't it, that nobody complains about "inequality" until they're in the bottom half.
Too bad that the university also screwed over quite a few seniors who lived in were excited to draw into Whitman last year, so they could be part of the 4 year college experience. Then the university kicked half of these seniors out because they didn't have enough room in the college for them (with essentially no notice prior to the day of room draw). The university gets so carried away with the long-term goal of the four year college that they don't even care how there terrible planning skills affect current students. They aren't really getting that much right with this 4 year college thing,o other than the fact that Whitman looks really pretty.
What a shock! An article that interviews the Whitman Dean, Housing Director, and two kids living the high life finds that things are going great. I love Gilson, but it's absurd that he gets such a great living arrangement when independent students are getting screwed over.
When the University gives me your room in addition to my own and you ask me how I feel about it, I will say it's good, too. Would you? Maybe you should write an article that asks the overwhelming majority of people, including those that wrote op-eds on a practically daily basis, about how incredibly unfair this move was for Independent students. There were more people applying than there were spots available, so your stats are bs.
Where are the interviews of all the independents getting screwed over?
Way to cover how the independents feel about this.
As wonderful as life is for the Whitman students in Spelman, the University's decision to move building 8 to the Whitman draw was extremely unfair to students. The two examples of "success" provided by the article are incredibly ironic - one of an independent student who wanted to go to Spelman and to do so had to join Whitman College, and another of a student already covered by two meal plans who has no need for a kitchen of his own. These were two of the arguments provided by students AGAINST a Whitman takeover of Spelman last year. Meanwhile 40 independent students who have NO meal plan to cover them and were in line for Spelman are pushed into cramped, inconvenient shared kitchens. What a "great success".
Also, applicants for the Spelman draw have NOT been "steadily decreasing over the last 5 years" - last year 232 students applied for the Spelman draw, which is the average number of applicants over the past 10 years. Also, not a single applicant in the draw last year dropped.
This decision needs to be seriously re-examined and Spelman 8 needs to be returned to independents.