To remain special , Princeton needs to consider radical revisions

The traditions that supposedly make Princeton special have been institutionalized to within an inch of their life, if they haven't aleady been shut down.

Cane Spree is on a respirator, its attendance sustained artificially by a PUDS smorgasbord.

The Nude Olympics — too raunchy for the University to claim as its own, too unpredictable to be left alone — is a thing of the past.

Even the once-spontaneous and euphoric gatherings on Dean's Date have been claimed by the acquisitive administrators of West College. A zealous sanitization campaign has erased real linkages to the past. And as a unintended result, there is probably now much less distinction between the Princeton experience and the experience to be had at Yale, Harvard or — gasp! — Penn than has ever been.

And so, it wasn't surprising to read in The New York Times this summer that distinctions between the characters of the student bodies at elite universities are more imagined than real — we're all basically fished from the same pool. So what can Princeton do if it wants to be more than a clone of its peers? The traditions are wrung of vitality, so where do we turn in a search for uniqueness?

To be sure, the administration is constantly preoccupied with this question. It's obvious to even the casual observer that Princeton's physical plant, admission policies and even its traditions, undergo near-constant scrutiny. And even if the pace of the change that accompanies that scrutiny is sometimes lumbering — Princeton's institutional dexterity brings to mind the heavily beaureaucratic, pre-PC days of the IBM Corporation — change has a healthy place in the culture of Old Nassau.

But the changes offered by the trustees and administration are refinements on a tried and true product. To my eye, that product has been tweaked exhaustively and seemingly with diminishing returns.

The percentage of Princeton graduates seeking jobs in the financial sector, in the service of their own wallets, is too high — 37 percent of the Class of 2003 — and justifies a revolution in the way this institution seeks to achieve its mission.

Serious reform could either begin with a curricular overhaul, with the thought that the problem lies not with the students themselves, but with how and what they're taught, or with a change in how Princeton recruits its student body.

Let's do both.

First, let's recognize that Princeton is in a unique geographical situation. If the University wants its graduates to take their diplomas to the streets, classrooms and legislatures, let's take advantage of what central New Jersey, New York and the megalopolis have to offer.

Build a satellite campus in Trenton, and let students study abroad there. (It's more foreign to most than London or Paris).

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Require that Wilson School students spend one term abroad, and their other three terms integrating a service component into their task forces and theses.

Integrate a community health component into the requirements for premed students.

Allow economics, politics and sociology majors to do some type of supervised management consulting for local nonprofits in lieu of one junior paper.

These curricular reforms are within reach, if we dare to have the imagination. And if we don't, we can look forward to more of the same, which isn't bad, but isn't great, and it certainly isn't unique in many salutary ways.

Second, Princeton needs to make itself a mecca for the strivers. Programs that reach out to the least privileged and most ambitious students, such as the Princeton University Preparatory Program, need to be expanded fivefold, and minority and low-income recruiting needs to increase by an equal amount. Qualified students whose parents didn't attend college should be as coveted as football stars.

The recent financial aid improvements are a move in the right direction, but unfortunately they don't dig deep enough. Today, 35.9 million Americans live in poverty, existing on much less than the University's definition of "low income." The improvements shouldn't stop until West College can boast about enrolling 161 students from truly impoverished households.

We need to find students who would finally treat a Princeton education like a sacred gift, and have Princeton teach them that the real gift is in giving back. Thomas Bohnett is a sophomore from Princeton. He can be reached at tbohnett@princeton.edu.