“We speculated that it would save money. We did not have a sense at all of the order of magnitude,” Klaus said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian, adding that that the majority of the savings came from maintenance having more time to prepare dorms not used for temporary housing for the academic year.
“In prior years, by having to have all 50 dormitory buildings open by August, Building [Services] and Maintenance and Design & Construction worked almost 24/7 in trying to get the campus ready for the students over the summer, and that resulted in a lot of overtime,” he said. He noted in the meeting that no consideration has yet been given to how the money will be redirected.
Under the new policy, students who arrived on campus prior to Sept. 1 were required to apply for summer housing and were unable to move directly into their academic-year housing. In past years, students have been permitted to move into their rooms in late August.
Proxes were deactivated over the summer unless students had approval to be on campus. The University also issued parking permits that were invalid for the summer months, as opposed to the usual 12-month passes, though the price for the permits remained the same.
The policy was aimed at streamlining Housing’s summer operations and ensuring students’ safety over the summer, when normal Public Safety or medical services may be limited, Klaus said in an interview with the ‘Prince’ in May.
“[In past years] we had the housing office trying to function as gatekeeper, which was really a challenge,” Klaus noted at the meeting, explaining the dangers of having a handful of students living alone on one part of the campus in the case of an emergency.
“We really had very little idea as to who was on campus,” he said, adding that students approved for early arrival were housed in seven temporary dorms this past summer instead of being scattered across campus as in previous years.
Klaus and Campbell explained that the concentration of students increased the effectiveness of Public Safety in the weeks leading up to the fall term. “We also had a lower number of incidents of alcohol and other violations,” Klaus said, noting that there were no alcohol-related transports until Sept. 11.
As part of the new policy, students will be asked to register online the days they will be on campus over winter break or their proxes will be deactivated, an effort that Campbell said is “all about safety, security, sustainability and savings.”
An Early Arrival Policy Committee (EAPC), composed of the leaders of programs and departments that had students who were required to return to campus early, was formed to review requests for early-arrival housing and oversee the policy changes. Of the 110 requests the EAPC received from student groups to return early to campus, all were approved, albeit with some “negotiated arrival dates,” Klaus said.
The EAPC also received 94 individual requests from students who asked to return to campus early, around 45 of which were repeated requests from individuals also involved in approved student groups. Only 15 of these individual requests were approved.
“There were some students who claimed they had to come back early … who claimed they couldn’t come back on Saturday, but in reality they could come in on Saturday. They just didn’t want to,” Campbell said. “Some of those individuals we bumped were because of a culture of, ‘The campus is always open, so I’m going to try.’ ”
Campbell and Klaus also explained that, though student feedback about the new policy had been sought through the USG, there were no student representatives in the planning process or on the policy committee because much of the work was done over the summer.
“If there’s an opportunity to do that next year, if anyone’s on campus, we can certainly do that,” Campbell added.
Joe Anaya ’12 said in an e-mail to the ‘Prince’ that he had a positive experience with the new policy. “Moving in early was very convenient,” he said, explaining that he got approval for early arrival as a member of BodyHype Dance Company.
But Marjorie Willner ’11 said her experience with the EAPC and the new policy left her “pretty annoyed.” Willner stayed at Charter Club over the summer while conducting research funded by a University stipend. She applied for early move-in approval because her contract with the club expired before regular move-in dates, but her application was denied.
“I was kind of surprised,” she said, adding that she sent a follow-up e-mail asking why she had been denied. “I didn’t understand why sports teams were moving in, and organizations were moving in, and they didn’t recognize me, when I was being funded by the University.”
Willner had to rely on two of her roommates for prox and key access for the first few days after she moved in.
“It seemed pretty stupid to me,” she said. “It seemed bureaucratic and something that wasn’t really helping the students.”
Correction
An earlier version inaccurately stated the EAPC process involved "negotiated arrival rates." In fact, it involved negotiated arrival dates.
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