University to crack down on early move-in

This new policy is one of several initiatives scheduled to be launched this summer to combat problems resulting from students who move in early. Building access during this period will also be restricted to those students specially approved to arrive on campus early.

These reforms will be overseen by the new Early Arrival Policy Committee (EAPC), which is composed of “all the programs or departments who have a stake in what’s going on when students arrive back on campus [early],” Campbell explained.

International students, sports teams and RCAs are often among those who arrive back on campus before the regular move-in date, in addition to roughly 375 students who stay on campus through the summer, Assistant Vice President for Facilities Chad Klaus said.

In the past, these students have moved directly into the rooms they would occupy for the academic year in late August. This coming fall, however, these students will stay together in certain dormitories until their peers arrive. This way, instead of being scattered across campus, the students will “co-mingle,” Campbell said.

Klaus explained that, because Princeton is not fully staffed during the summer, early move-ins can create added stress for the University.

“Essentially all the dorms have to be ready by mid-August [under the current plan], because in that incoming contingent there’s usually one or two [students] per building,” he noted, adding that “co-mingling” will alleviate the stress on the Facilities staff.

“We’re not instituting policy changes,” Klaus explained. “We’re thinking about better enforcing the policies we have.”

Campbell and Klaus also noted that they didn’t think students would be inconvenienced by the co-mingling initiative, explaining that the football team has asked for concentrated housing accommodations during pre-season in the past.

“Athletics has been a great partner in working with us,” Klaus said. “The football team, which is the largest team that comes back early, has already been co-mingling of their own independent incentive. They see a lot of benefits in co-mingling when you’re bringing students back early.”

Because Princeton doesn’t host its own summer school classes, the University rents out dorms to summer camps and sports programs between June and August. Thus there is often very little time left for Facilities to prepare rooms before students arrive.

“It really truncates by a fair amount how much time we have to do heavy maintenance, summer cleaning, that sort of stuff,” Klaus explained.

Klaus also noted that the campus is ill-equipped to handle students so early, as many University services don’t start up until the beginning of the academic year.

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“Each of our departments has been challenged at that point in time. We don’t have a dean on call, we don’t have food services,” he said. “We don’t have the kind of services that we really need.”

Safety for students is also an issue, Klaus said. “[If students have problems with alcohol] they’re going to end up at [the University Medical Center at Princeton] or somewhere else, because we don’t have after-hours [staff] at McCosh,” Klaus explained.

He added that it can be difficult to ensure student security over the summer, as Princeton has an open campus. Efforts are being taken to control who is on campus before regular move-in, Klaus said, adding that this coming fall, proxes will only be activated for students associated with a group that has been approved to be on campus early.

As an additional security measure, parking passes will now have to be specially registered for summer months at no additional cost.

Due to student complaints that the regular move-in dates don’t allow enough time to settle in before classes begin, all students will now be allowed to arrive on the Saturday, rather than the Sunday, before classes begin.

The EAPC also plans to create a website where students are required to register if they want to stay on campus over breaks. This will enable administrators to be keep track of students in the case of an emergency, Campbell said.

“We ... don’t know who’s on campus over winter break,” she explained. “Should there be a weather event, the power goes out, someone’s really sick, someone’s on campus who shouldn’t be — we don’t know who is where.”