More than 30 years ago, the University implemented coeducation, almost doubling the undergraduate student population. The Wythes Committee Report proposes a similar but smaller increase in the number of students. Like coeducation, the proposed 500-student increase could have an equally significant impact on university life.
The Wythes committee's overall goal to attract a more varied student body is an essential and worthwhile pursuit. The small size of Princeton's student body makes it difficult for the University to admit a well-balanced freshman class. Because the number of recruited student athletes is not expected to rise, increasing the size of the student body would theoetically allow more minority and international students to be admitted. This would ensure a continued variety in the applicant pool and a fuller respresentation of the nation's demographics on campus — an important and necessary goal.
While we believe that class size should be increased, we have reservations about whether the Wythes committee's implementation plans adequately address the negative consequences of an enlarged student body.
Members of the Wythes committee believe the proposed 500-student increase would have a minimal impact on the undergraduate student experience. The committee is confident that the increase would not compromise such tenets of the undergraduate program as individual attention to students, precepts of no more than 12 students and faculty advising of independent work.
But even with today's student population hovering around 4,600, the University already suffers from overcrowding problems. Popular classes such as ECO 102 and LIT 141 easily fill the campus' largest lecture halls. At a university that prides itself on making classes accessible to all students, an enlarged student body could increase competition for limited spots in desired courses. Precepts, contrary to the committee's belief, would also suffer from an extra 500 students. The 12-person precept is often the exception rather than the rule in an already overburdened system.
There is no reason to expect the majority of new students to filter into the University's smaller departments. Instead, they are more likely to distribute themselves in the same percentages as students do now. Students majoring in the University's larger departments already receive a minimum of faculty attention. More students would exacerbate this problem.
We applaud the Wythes committee for its efforts to increase class size, and we hope the additional spaces in each class will widen the ethnic and intellectual spectrum of the student body. To prepare for this increase, however, the committee needs to implement measures to maintain the University's educational integrity. The committee assumes that an annual one percent increase in faculty and the current number of graduate students will sufficiently serve an additional 500 students. But we remain unconvinced that the University's current infrastructure will be able to support the proposed student body increase.
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