Clubs, University prepare to announce new meal plans

Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel and Executive Vice President Mark Burstein fielded questions Monday about the upcoming four-year residential college system, explaining the logistics of room draw and social activities at the colleges and announcing that further details regarding shared meal plans with the eating clubs will be revealed before winter break.

The Council of the Princeton University Community meeting was a continuation of a series of 10 student forums that Burstein and Malkiel have held with students this fall.

"The conversations that we've had with undergraduates have been clearly fruitful," Malkiel said, emphasizing that students have raised issues the administration had not thought about in the past.

Whitman College is scheduled to open next fall, and Mathey College will become a four-year college at that time. Burstein and Malkiel expect a total of 250 juniors and seniors to draw into the two colleges next year.

To make room for the juniors and seniors, Mathey will be downsized to 200 freshmen and 200 sophomores, and 50 of the current freshmen who live in Mathey will live in Whitman. Similarly, rising sophomores who live in the Butler quad will also be housed in Whitman.

Butler College will become a four-year college in fall 2009, after a set of new dorms is constructed.

"First priority draw for the four-year colleges will be given to students who have lived in that college as sophomores and students who lived in the twin college as well," Malkiel said.

Each four-year college is to be paired with a two-year college "twin." Mathey will be paired with Rocky, Whitman with Forbes and Butler with Wilson.

The timetable of deadlines for choosing dining and social options will be as follows: bicker and sign-in clubs, followed by four-year residential colleges in mid-February, then independent draw, upper class draw and room draw for rising sophomores in their respective colleges. In each of the six colleges, there will be 10 graduate students in residence, Burstein said.

Malkiel emphasized that "the system that we are launching in the fall is still very dependent on the majority of undergraduates [being in] clubs," and will not allow for the participation of more than 250 upperclassmen in four-year colleges.

College culture

Malkiel said that the new colleges will change the nature of social activities available to students.

"You're going to see a major change in the level of variety and possibility [of] student-generated and student-led social activities," Malkiel said, promising "new, renovated facilities" that will generate "resources that will simply be more abundant and significant than now. That means that students in the colleges will be able to think up and execute all sorts of social, academic, intellectual, cultural, civic engagement — you name the label."

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The hope, Malkiel said, is that the colleges will be able to house student activities that are not necessarily college-related. She expects that eventually each college will have its "own signature activity" similar to Wilson College's Blackbox.

With the influx of upperclassmen, Malkiel also expects increased leadership of student-led activities. Each college will have a director of student life to respond to students' social needs.

Regardless of whether upperclassmen continue to live in their residential college, the University wants juniors and seniors to "participate in the full range of activities that the colleges provide," Malkiel said. "In that sense, every college is a four-year residential college."

To further this hope, the new system will offer fellowship and career advising opportunities, junior paper and senior thesis groups and nondepartmental academic advising in the colleges instead of the Dean of the College's office.

In response to a question by USG vice president Rob Biederman '08 regarding the source of expanded activities funding, Burstein assured the crowd that the money will not come out of the students' activities fee or the USG budget but did not specify where the funds would come from.

The four-year colleges will also include an overhaul of the dining halls.

"We'll have chef managers whose responsibilities would be ... to respond to student taste, essentially running their own restaurant equivalent in the dining system," Malkiel said, adding that the technology and the look of the serveries will be "much more modern."

"The 'cook it at 10 o'clock in the morning, serve it at one o'clock in the afternoon' [mentality] will go out the door," she said. In addition, the "ambience of the dining rooms will be much more congenial, but in many cases [it] will still be true to the collegiate, gothic feel."

Meals and deals

In terms of meal options, Burstein and Malkiel emphasized that students will "have the full range of choices available to them right now."

The minimum meal plan purchase for an upperclassman at Whitman or Mathey is a block of 95 meals per semester, which averages to just over six meals per week accumulated over the semester. The minimum block plan for underclassmen is 190 meals per semester.

In addition, all upperclassmen, regardless of college membership, will be able to take two meals per week at any residential college at no cost to themselves. These meals will not be transferable from week to week and will not be eligible for Frist late show.

The final decision in December will inform students whether they can be members of both a four-year residential college and an eating club without having to pay in full for both contracts.

The potential split-meal contract would let students take some of their meals at the clubs and some in the residential colleges and may include an increase in student aid packages.

"My conversations with the eating clubs have been very productive," Burstein said, adding that he is confident he can meet the mid-December timeline.

Burstein wrote in an email to The Daily Princetonian last week that the University is "continuing to discuss the details of these potential arrangements with each club individually," but he declined to comment at the meeting on the nature of discussions with specific clubs and whether all the clubs would agree to a shared meal plan.

The goal, both Malkiel and Burstein emphasized, is to remove financial considerations from a student's decision to take meals at an eating club, a residential college or some combination thereof.