With massive Gothic towers, mottled stone and gleaming sod, students returning to campus this fall have found it all but impossible not to notice that the construction site at the south end of Elm Drive has been transformed into the mammoth Whitman College.
Awed by seeing the project finally completed, excited about living there or envious of those who do, students may overlook the overall transformation of the residential college system.
Common spaces and dining halls in Forbes, Mathey and Rockefeller Colleges have been renovated in the last few months, the dorms of the Butler College quad have been demolished and some undergraduate rooms in each college have been converted into as many as 10 graduate student suites.
But the changes to the system run much deeper, allowing each college to specialize and develop its own identity, from updated college shields to new menus unique to each college's dining hall. It may seem like a way to make the envious students in the five other colleges feel a little bit less jealous about not living in Whitman, but it is actually much more about creating one-of-a-kind undergraduate experiences.
Unique personalities
The revamped residential college system allows for even greater latitude for each college in organizing its programs and offerings. Antoine Kahn, Mathey master, said that since residential colleges largely function independently of each other, Whitman will not significantly affect the way the five other colleges function.
"It certainly changes the look of the middle of the campus," he said. "But in terms of the other colleges and what we do, it doesn't have much of an impact."
Since the inception of the residential college system in the early 1980s, each college has been responsible for its own programming, administration and budget — and that has not changed, Rockefeller administrator Karen Sisti said. Though staff share advice and notify other colleges of upcoming events, the opening of Whitman will neither enhance nor detract from intercollegiate interactions, she said in an email.
One major change to the college system is what and how students eat. In addition to the new facilities at Whitman and the renovated Forbes, Mathey and Rocky dining halls, further renovations to Butler and Wilson will be completed by fall 2009, said Chad Klaus, general manager of services in the office of the vice president for facilities. Over the summer, they underwent a "deep cleaning of existing resources," he said, and will have slightly higher food budgets than the other dining halls to compensate for the older facilities.
Chefs from all four residential college kitchens — Butler/Wilson, Rocky/Mathey, Forbes and Whitman — place food orders on campus-wide procurement software that sends consolidated orders to vendors, Dining Services Director Stu Orefice said.
New marketplace-style serveries offer many food items made-to-order, rather than cooked in bulk and kept warm in steam trays. The result, Mathey administrator Pat Byrne said, is that "the food is better [because] the chefs in the residential colleges are making up their own menus each week and preparing what they feel is special and what the students would really like."
Chefs are expected to incorporate suggestions and recommendations from college administrators, college councils and individual students into their menus. Two meals may never be alike.
Other aspects of the new system will also differentiate the colleges. The addition to each college of as many as 10 resident graduate students gives colleges the freedom to craft their own specific programs and activities. Kahn explained that each graduate student will function somewhat independently in being responsible for one aspect of college life.
"One year we may have one or two grad students interested in [one] type of event, the next year we won't," he said. "The specific programs they run will depend on the individuals we have that particular year."
Luke Uribarri, a resident graduate student in Whitman, said his duties extend beyond simply using his own undergraduate experience to help RCAs. "There's a ... desire," he said, "to bring about a change in the general perception of graduate students among Princeton undergrads."
Hopefully, he added, as undergraduates talk, eat and live with graduate students outside of precepts or other academic settings, "the perception of the 'sketchy grad student' will be gone because each of the [undergraduates] will have had positive interactions with grad students."
This year also marks the inauguration of the residential college faculty-in-residence program, in which one faculty member organizes special events and speakers for his or her individual college. This allows colleges to focus their interests and develop individualized programs.
In Mathey, Evan Thomas, a lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and a Newsweek magazine editor, has invited a White House staff member to talk about homeland security. This is an example, Kahn said, of Thomas using his position to create a niche for Mathey in politics and journalism. Along with Rocky, the college is located closest to the offices of The Daily Princetonian and other student publications, as well as Joseph Henry House, where journalism classes are generally conducted.
Some of the changes may be be more challenging than others. It is hoped that Forbes' sister college relationship with Whitman will mirror the success of Rocky Mathey's, Mathey Dean Steven Lesitition said. This will be more difficult since Forbes and Whitman aren't contiguous and don't have a shared history, he noted, but not impossible.
"Forbes students will be walking by Whitman, [and] it will be more of a challenge, understandably, for students to go to Forbes," he said, adding that Forbes' environmental focus may lure students to make the trek. "I can imagine some Whitman students saying, 'that's exactly what I'm interested in.' "
These niches could be further honed by each college's director of student life, a new position responsible for student wellbeing, social programming and discipline.
Michael Olin, Wilson College's director of student life, said in an email that his goal is to make the residential college "a cornerstone of student life" for students of all classes.
In the context of such specialization, Lestition said, Whitman has the potential to alter campus culture. As a "sixth center for student life" in the middle of campus, students of all colleges will be able to partake of Whitman's unique opportunities.
"Adding a sixth residential college just diversifies the residential college life and opportunities that much more," he said. Residential colleges were effective, he noted, so Whitman is just "building on the model that was here."
In all six colleges, academic advising has been consolidated from separate systems for underclassmen and upperclassmen into a more consistent experience across all four years. Rather than seeking out a residential college administrator for advice in the first two years and a dean in West College for the last two, all nondepartmental academic advising will be done by the college deans and directors of studies.
So will these increased opportunities within each residential college hurt cross-college student interactions? Uribarri doesn't think so.
"Certainly, I don't think we're going to have six isolated fiefdoms," he said. "People have a way of naturally breaking down barriers like that."
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