CPUC discusses COMBO study, Dillon Gym renovations

Former USG president Rob Biederman ’08 discussed the results on behalf of the USG’s Committee on Background and Opportunity (COMBO). The survey, which captured responses from 30 percent of the undergraduate population, explored the differences in campus lifestyles of students based on socioeconomic factors.

While the study’s results are not currently available in full, they are scheduled to be released to the public after COMBO discusses its recommendations with the University Board of Trustees in April.

Biederman explained four reasons for conducting the survey, the first of which is that at every university, there are “pretty clear differences across students based on the type of background they come from.”

The second reason, Biederman said, is about visibility, since “socioeconomic issues aren’t often discussed because one, they’re not that obvious from looking at someone typically and two, they make people somewhat uncomfortable because it’s something that in many cases people are trying to hide on either side.”

Biederman explained that the survey will also provide “data that was quantitative backup for the things we intuitively sort of noticed over four years, three years of college” as well as offering “a baseline for comparison” to future classes.

“We are hoping the future USGs will administer the survey every two or four years,” Biederman said.

One key finding of the survey was that a person’s socioeconomic status affects his or her reasons for choosing a college. Upper-income students tended to value “soft” components, such as location, extracurricular activities and living conditions, while lower-income students looked at the school’s financial-aid offerings and the school’s potential to better their chances of being accepted to graduate schools.

Once on campus, the study found, upper-income students are more likely to join bicker clubs, and middle-income students are more likely to join sign-in clubs.

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Some students with financial hardships also indicated on the survey that they did not participate in extracurricular activities because of dues requirements.

The survey also concluded that “you know different things about the campus social and academic life before you come here, and that in many ways interacts with how you approach your freshman year,” Biederman explained.

Citing the Princeton Preview weekend, Outdoor Action, Community Action and Frosh Week as opportunities to inform lower-income students about social life on campus, Biederman explained that “one of the shocking things with the lower-class students,” even those from neighboring states, is that they “showed almost no familiarity with [the] Princeton social scene upon entering.”

The COMBO survey recommendations applauded the efforts by the Admission Office to reach out to lower-income college applicants, as well as the Ignite Program’s efforts to bring young children to campus to encourage them to pursue college educations. The University should take socioeconomic background into consideration when it markets itself, Biederman said.

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COMBO has yet to create concrete plans for how it will use the results to initiate change. The group, however, foresees trying to increase course reserves and possibly placing Pequod packets online in light of high textbook costs.

Four-year residential colleges and the decision by the Priorities Committee to increase funding for club sports can mitigate social divisions and open up opportunities, Biederman said. The four-year-college system “could be a tremendous tool to affect the longstanding social divisions that have taken place in the University,” he explained.

Dillon renovation

At the meeting, University Architect Jon Hlafter ’61 spoke about the 10-year Campus Plan, focusing on developments in different “neighborhoods” of the campus such as the Arts and Transit Neighborhood and the science district. “In the historic part of the campus ... relatively little development has been planned,” Hlafter noted.

Noting that the University is “making laudable efforts to push forth in first and second stages of Dillon improvements,” USG president Josh Weinstein ’09 asked Hlafter to elaborate on the Campus Plan’s mention of possible expansion of Dillon Gym and the “alternative sites under study.”

Though the University “did look for opportunities to expand Dillon within the time frame of the current capital plan,” Hlafter said, “based upon the best efforts of the [estimations] on where Princeton can be within the next 10 years, the resources do not exist to be able to improve Dillon.”

“I would think that certainly the opportunity to construct in this area … is one of the important things that I hope happens at Princeton sometime within the next decade or two,” Hlafter added. “As a physical planner, I would certainly say that it’s something that is on our … list of things to do."