Four years for all

During the first decade of the 20th century, Wilson embarked on a formative and ambitious plan to modernize Princeton. His signal failure was the Quadrangle Plan, which envisioned four-year quads (residential colleges), with faculty masters and individual facilities. He would place students into a college by lottery; the eating clubs could either integrate with the colleges or dissolve. In a recurring theme in Wilson’s life, the group he needed to ratify his proposal — here the alumni and trustees, later in his life the U.S. Senate — refused to assent, Wilson refused to compromise, and his plan died.

Where Princeton tried and failed, Harvard and Yale followed and succeeded. During the 1930s, both schools introduced a system of colleges (or houses, to use Harvard’s term) that last until senior year. All students are members of one until graduation, though Harvard students don’t join a house until sophomore year. The colleges and houses offer academic support, master’s teas and social events.

As for Princeton, the college idea returned in modified form. A group of students banded together in the 1950s to form the Woodrow Wilson Lodge, which eventually became Wilson College in 1966. Twelve years later, the Committee on Undergraduate Residential Life revived Wilson’s failed Quadrangle Plan, albeit with two-year colleges instead of four-year ones. By the end of the 1980s, Princeton had Butler, Forbes, Mathey, Rockefeller and Wilson colleges. And in 2007, a century after Wilson’s failure, Princeton inaugurated Whitman College and the four-year system we have today.

Still, the current arrangement deprives students who begin in a two-year college and continue in a four-year college of important continuity. As a Rocky resident during my first two years here, I had no choice but to switch colleges for my final two years. Switching colleges interrupts the continuity of our relationship with the people in a college. It doesn’t mean that I won’t stop to chat in the dining hall with my old college’s master. Nor does it mean that I don’t feel like I’m part of my new college.

But the goals of the residential college system are not served by having students switch to a sister college. Upperclassmen would feel most connected to their college if they had a single loyalty to it, not a new affiliation in junior year. We weaken the social capital forged in freshman and sophomore years by having some students switch. One of the system’s benefits is the upperclassmen-underclassmen relationship, and that too would be best served by continuity.

Perhaps this idea means the creation of more colleges, or the elimination of a college, based on size; I don’t have access to the necessary data. Any proposal should also configure the colleges to be as geographically contiguous as possible. And it is possible that in the long run, additional dining hall capacity may need to be built. But these changes would turn a good system (half two-year colleges, half four-year colleges) into a very good one.

To be clear, this does not mean attacking the eating clubs like Wilson did. Granted, the University might want to reconsider the free services it provides for the eating clubs. According to the Task Force on Relationships Between the University and the Eating Clubs, these include snow removal and wireless Internet. And the University should definitely not support financially struggling eating clubs, which one task force report suggested we consider if the need arose. That money would be better spent on residential college activities, academics, salaries or cutting the cost of tuition.

The ideal model is live-and-let-live — perhaps live-and-let-die — but definitely not live-and-let’s-kill. Reasonable people can disagree about the merits of the clubs. Regardless of our individual opinions on the clubs’ pros and cons, having a stronger option for students who value the residential college experience can’t hurt. If future students choose to remain in the colleges rather than join a club, that’s their choice. Either way, the colleges will be more vibrant hubs of social and intellectual activity on campus.

Although the history of residential colleges in Princeton is punctuated by long stretches of stagnation, perhaps the new working group on campus life will break that pattern. Harvard and Yale have systems that last through senior year, and other peer schools are considering residential college systems. We’ve fallen behind over the last century, but it’s time to reclaim the lead for Old Nassau.

Brian Lipshutz is a politics major from Lafayette Hill, Pa. He can be reached at lipshutz@princeton.edu.