When the Princeton football team takes the field tomorrow night under the lights for the home opener of the Ivy League season, the stadium will be packed with students, alumni and faculty.
However, missing among those orange-and-black-clad fans will be many graduate students.
Unlike University undergraduates, graduate students do not receive complimentary tickets to athletic events — like tomorrow's game — or to other social events on campus.
Tickets to such events are not complimentary for graduate students because there is no comparable fee to the undergraduate student fee which provides financial support.
"I'm not sure how many [graduate students] are affected by this," said Matt Fouse GS, president of the Graduate Student Government, "but I think they would like to be involved."
Though some graduate students will make their way between the prowling tigers guarding Princeton Stadium because the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni will give away free tickets at its annual tailgating party, Fouse said he sees this as part of a bigger problem."Little things [like free tickets] add up," Fouse said.
Other graduate students do not hold this view.
"Graduate students are a community of very interesting people who do not have a lot time on our hands," said Elliot Ratzman, a graduate student in the religion department. "I can't imagine that many graduate students think about this."
At other undergraduate-specific events and places like the 'Street' Fouse said he did not feel there are problems.
"I know when people want to hang out, there is no grad-profiling," he said.
Though eating clubs do not exclude graduate students, some feel that they should be more welcoming.
"It would be nice if eating clubs had a more clear mission to reach out [to graduate students]," Ratzman said, and for eating clubs not to treat graduate students as a "mass of people they don't want to hang out with."
Though it's hard to put a point on any specific issue or the largest problem, Fouse highlighted the post-enrollment period — where students are still affiliated with the University but are not in residence.
"Post-enrollment happens to a majority of graduate students," Fouse explained and it can have varying effects depending on where the student is living. For example, students living in the Princeton area and not on campus do not have access to amenities like the gym.
In addition to social events, Fouse said he felt it can be a problem when graduate students cannot be executive or official members of student organizations.
"This has caused problems in the past like not being able to schedule rehearsal space," Fouse said. Graduate students may "end up on the periphery."
However, Ratzman — who participates in the undergraduate breakdancing group and in progressive organizations including the graduate group the Democratic Left — said he felt graduate students participated with as much enthusiasm as undergraduates.
"A lot of groups have support across both populations [of undergraduate and graduate students] such as theatre producations," Dean of Undergraduate Students Tom Dunne said.
Dunne said that the University would like to respect the autonomy of student groups as to how graduate students are involved.
In the last several years the University has taken steps to make the campus more inclusive.
"We worked very hard in recent years to open up possibilities for graduate students to participate in the community," Dean of the Graduate College John Wilson said.
Passport-to-the-Arts — which provides a packet of complimentary tickets to art productions on campus and McCarter Theatre — was extended to graduate students last year, and Frist was designed to include all members of the community.
"I don't think we've reached the end of the process," Wilson said. "We must ascertain what benefits graduate students would like to see."
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