President Shapiro lays out plans for remainder of his tenure

The approaching end of President Shapiro's tenure meant a warm exchange of ideas and memories with the USG at its meeting last night.

Contentious issues such as the arrangements for Nelson Mandela's visit — later canceled — and the details of the Wythes report are no longer on the agenda for Shapiro's regular USG appearances. Instead, as he prepares to step down from his post, Shapiro reflected on his years as president and his priorities for his remaining months in office.

"I'm going to recommend to the board hopefully in their January meeting a new financial-aid improvement for both undergraduate and graduate students," Shapiro said. He said the magnitude of the improvement would be comparable to the University's widely emulated decision two years ago to augment financial aid for undergraduate students from low and middle-income backgrounds.

Shapiro also said establishing one or two four-year residential colleges is "a reasonable idea" and "an interesting thing to try," though he noted that choosing an eating club and leaving the residential colleges is "a step toward more full adulthood and responsibility."

Shapiro said he rejected proposals several years ago to create four-year residential colleges in part because "I did not find [a faculty committee's] report convincing or compelling."

He added that student health services at the University need improvement, whether under his tenure or his successor's. "It's not clear whether McCosh, which is a wonderful building, is providing modern health care anymore," he said. He said that as health care has become increasingly reliant on medication and as medical facilities have sprung up in Princeton, the University's health services "haven't really changed."

Shapiro also provided an update about an administrative change made last year to improve the recruitment of minority faculty. A central committee now proposes minority scholars for recruitment to departments in the humanities and social sciences.

"It appears that this year, this fall, we have a larger number of young minority faculty," Shapiro said, estimating that four or five minority junior faculty members joined the University.

The new approach to recruiting will now be expanded to the sciences and engineering, where the method also will be used to identify possible female faculty members.

Shapiro, who plans to continue to work as a faculty member after leaving the presidency, was quick to remind USG president PJ Kim '01 that leaving Nassau Hall is not a life-and-death change.

When Kim asked, "If you had another year left," Shapiro cut him off.

"I do have another year left, just not as president," Shapiro said, eliciting chuckles.