The modern American university is asked to carry out a strange amalgam of functions which, by any reasonable standard of organizational design, ought rightly to be performed by separate institutions. Grad students and professors are asked to balance teaching and research, while undergrads must juggle an even more unwieldy collection of activities including athletics, academics and extracurriculars, not to mention that classy cocktail of fine dining, keg draining and pornography perusing known as the Street. No single individual could do all these things well, and no University should expect students to do so.
Princetonians are thus forced to specialize, performing one of the many activities demanded of them reasonably well, and the rest rather poorly. Grads and faculty tend to focus either on teaching or research at the expense of the other, although a few of my sketchier colleagues have, with Zachary Goldstein '05's recent invitation, considered concentrating on the Street.
Undergrads, in turn, tend to consider the impetus to specialize in terms of the classic cliques of high school. At Princeton, jocks remain jocks, dorks remain dorks, tools remain tools, and drunks or stoners remain drunks or stoners.
The recent brouhaha in these pages over the Street is what happens when the interests of these different demographics collide.
Grad students are basically grown up dorks. While not all of us have attended colleges reminiscent of the town in "Flashdance" before Kevin Bacon's arrival, all of us are basically opposed to partying when it comes into conflict with Princeton's academic mission. Others, however, see Princeton primarily as a place for nonacademic pursuits, and they aren't wrong to do so. As long as the University continues to include such a wide variety of unconnected activities under its single, ivy-covered umbrella, it is up to each of us to prioritize among these activities as we so choose. Bitter conflicts between those with different priorities, however, will be the inevitable result.
It is for this reason that, sad as it may seem, Princeton can only survive as if each of its several functions is dissociated from the others.
First, we need a place for those SAT-acing undergrad dorks to learn at the side of committed professors, teachers undistracted by the tenure race or the demands of academic research. Perhaps this institution could use the University's original name, "The College of New Jersey."
Second, we need an organization for subsidized, minor league sports which are either too obscure or played too poorly to support themselves through ticket sales and TV contracts. We could name the organization "The Tiger Corporation for the Subsidization of Obscure and Poorly Played Sports" and call say, the owners of the series of male and female minor league sports teams all called "The New Jersey Tigers."
Third, we need a multimedia publishing, performing and outdoor-activity-pursuing conglomerate committed to allowing artistic young people to devote themselves to several years of creative self-expression before having to accept soul-crushing work as corporate consultants: "The Jersey Gymboree," we could call it.
Fourth, all grad students and faculty who are interested primarily in research should be sent somewhere out in the woods where annoying undergrads can never bother them. I propose to call this institution "The Institute for Advanced Study II: Einstein's Revenge."
Finally, and perhaps more importantly, we need a series of alcohol-purchasing cooperatives which allow those between the ages of 18 and 21 to violate underage drinking laws, read pornography and grind sensually against one another in a fun, safe environment. Fortunately, these cooperatives already exist and are already nominally independent of the University. Once the rest of Princeton is no more and no longer issues official ID's, they'll just have to start admitting anyone with a taste for cheap beer.
The result of dissolving the University into a series of loosely-affiliated specialized institutions can only be greater harmony between those ensconced on opposite sides of the new organizational barriers. As the Israelis and Palestinians will only end their conflict when separated by secure borders, so too will we Princetonians achieve peace only with walls of security separating the jocks from the dorks and the tools from the drunks.
Now is not the time for halfhearted reforms, but for the end of Princeton as we know it.
Michael Frazer is a politics graduate student from Riverdale, N.Y. You can email him at mfrazer@princeton.edu.
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