Letters to the Editor

Public Safety plays vital role on campus

Regarding 'Public Safety should protect, not party-crash' (Wednesday, Sept. 28):

I'm afraid this author is another one of those students who doesn't know how good she has it. First of all, I find it interesting that her friend was unable to get housing on campus when the University guarantees housing to all students, and they even managed to house an additional 24 students from Tulane this year. Nevertheless, the job of the Department of Public Safety is, indeed, to protect and respond to the emergencies of all affiliates of the University within their jurisdiction. When the officer said that they are not a taxi service, I completely agree with him. They are, whether you want to believe it or not, a police department. Many of their officers are not just "rent-a-cops," but sworn police officers.

Public Safety goes above what is required by providing a free taxi service for on-campus locations, in addition to the grad student shuttles that run from horribly early times in the morning to late evening. As for complaining about the speed of the dial-up service, talk to your fellow undergrads using it to go from Lot 23 to Bloomberg or from TI to 1903 at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday nights. Moreover, the officers over at Public Safety go so far as to give medical transports to people with injuries who are unable to obtain a golf cart, either from availability or financial reasons. As for the off-campus policy, I feel that if you make it off campus, you can make it back onto campus. We're grownups now. Public Safety is not our parents away from home who come to pick us up from the movie theater.

I do not think that Public Safety has the responsibility to protect someone at all times in all places just because he is a student here. Public Safety has a fantastic presence on campus that, I believe, has done a great job keeping dangerous people — including gangs — off the campus. Their main responsibility is the campus, and they do a great job protecting it. Michael Westrol '07

Princeton community exists beyond campus

Regarding 'Prevent senioritis before it's too late' (Wednesday, Sept. 21):

Don't be too worried about graduating. Far short of a "momentous change," it's really just a myth. Your entire class just moves 45 miles up-up campus to New York. At that time, eating clubs are replaced with Upper East Side bars and frats with i-banks. And never fear, you'll never have to meet new people or make new friends ... because, best I can tell, very few people are in New York other than Princetonians. So far, I've hung out with more Princetonians here in New York than I ever did at school. So get prepared seniors, your fifth year at Princeton starts soon! Adam Kopald '05

By ignoring eating clubs, the University only hurts itself

Regarding 'Valuing the eating club system' (Thursday, Sept. 22):

As an interviewer for the Alumni Schools Committee, I am bewildered each year by the short shrift given the eating clubs in the University brochure intended for applicants. As a result, I find applicants coming to interviews either without a clue as to our eating club system or having gotten the misguided impression that they are a negative institution at Princeton. For this, I place most of the blame on the school administration, which seems embarrassed by the eating clubs. I wonder how many worthy potential applicants have turned elsewhere due to the distorted impressions of the eating clubs fostered by the University administration itself. Glenn Adams '63