Malkiel, students spar over colleges

The Stokes Lounge of Whig Hall became a forum for student anxieties last night as Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel and Executive Vice President Mark Burstein answered questions from the Class of 2008 concerning next year's four-year residential college system.

The audience of around 50 grilled the administrators for more than an hour about concerns related to the emerging colleges, particularly about whether they will divide rich and poor students, siphon potential members away from the century-old eating club system and exclude those who opt to be independent.

"Why create a dorm with really nice facilities that will draw attention when you can't participate if you don't want to be part of the college system?" one student asked. "Do you think that the financial favorability of Whitman and Mathey will divide the University between those that can and cannot afford eating clubs?" another asked.

Both Malkiel and Burstein, for their part, said they wanted the colleges to be open to independent students and those in eating clubs, but stressed that four-year college housing will be reserved for students with at least a 95-meals-per-semester plan.

"We hope independent students [including eating club members] will be active with the new college facilities, but you need the minimum block meal plan to live in the college," Malkiel said.

"We have developed a minimum 95-meal per semester plan keeping in mind that people would be eating at other places," Burstein added.

Burstein also said that the University's plans for the future include the Street, responding to concerns that eating-club members were being excluded from discussions about the colleges.

"Speaking for the administration," he said, "I would like to report that eating clubs are an important part of the Princeton Experience."

While some juniors expressed excitement over the new colleges' enhanced facilities, others wondered whether they would drive a rift through the campus.

"The new college system counts on an ideal situation, but with the eating clubs it will create a wider gap between those who can and cannot afford them," Emma Harper '08 said in an interview before the event.

Burstein and Malkiel said the University was merely adding another option for those students who decide not to join the eating clubs. Four-year colleges and eating clubs coexisted in the 1970s and students were satisfied with the situation, both administrators said.

Reflecting on upperclassmen interest in a four-year program, Burstein said, "The truth is we are investing in many things and the four-year residential college system is one of them."

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"If you ask the alumni who stayed in the older [four-year residential college] system, they will tell you how great a time they had," Burstein said.

A more minor concern that surfaced during the discussion was about how the role of the RCAs will change as they begin to live among juniors and seniors.

"We know the dynamic will change," Burstein said, "but there are other systems out there that show this dynamic can work."

In response to a question about whether underclassmen RCAs would have authority over "the seniors partying next door," Malkiel replied, "The primary responsibility of the RCAs will be to acculturate the freshmen."

Similar question-and-answer sessions will be sponsored by the USG, the Class of 2009, Forbes, Wilson/Butler and Rockefeller/Mathey.