“He puts it in the corner like a dog who says, ‘This is my spot,’ ” Bowman said. “What is the purpose? Does he leave it there and use it when he comes in again? It’s driving me up the wall, every single day.”
But after 22 years on the job, Bowman is well-prepared for her daily tasks. She always brings a change of clothes, for example, since she finds bottles filled with urine in the trashcans outside students’ rooms — every single day.
“The urine [gets] on us,” she said. “They put it in the recycle bins, and they know we have to pick it up.”
Many similar episodes of student negligence in matters of cleanliness arise throughout the year. And on a campus with some of the most capable, ambitious and socially aware scholars in the nation, it seems counterintuitive that students leave public spaces in such poor conditions.
Incidents such as bottles of urine left in trashcans are very common, said Matt Frawley, director of student life for Mathey College.
“It’s unhealthy, and it’s really insensitive,” he said. “Why you would want to subject another human being to handle your urine is beyond me.”
Many agreed that Princeton students — accustomed to a campus that is run like clockwork, but with little visible effort — are often simply unaware of the implications their actions have on others. Some, including janitors themselves, argued that Princeton students face significant pressures in their daily lives and are no less considerate than the average person. Others said that while they recognized that impressions might be formed based simply on the actions of a few, students’ carelessness may reflect a larger problem.
Cleaning up campus
For some, the lack of consideration of Princeton students is surprising.
“I thought that at Princeton, people would be better — at least, better than average,” said Omoshalewa Bamkole ’11, a residential college adviser in Whitman College. “These are people who discover supernovas and might get Nobel Prizes in the future.”
Sarah Sims ’11, an RCA in Rockefeller College, said that one reason she thought students are less cognizant of the effects of their actions is a lack of interaction between students and janitors. The different schedules on which students and janitors operate mean interactions happen only when students have “just woken and are completely out of it,” she said.
“It’s not that they’re disrespectful, they’re just not conscious of [the janitors],” explained Hana Passen ’12, an RCA in Mathey College. “Everything happens in the morning. It’s all hidden under the rug, which makes it very easy for people to overlook. They figure the trash gets picked up and don’t really think about it.”
Eva Wash ’11, an RCA in Forbes College, said she remembered being surprised her freshman year by how many things were “taken care of” for her.
“All of a sudden I didn’t have to worry about the trash. All the dishes were done by someone else,” she explained. “I wasn’t used to not having to partake a little bit more in the actual upkeep of a household.”
But Passen said she feels the issue may be deeper than students simply being oblivious to the janitors’ work. Students who leave messes such as vomit in public spaces may not want others to know about it, thus leaving it to janitors whom they know will deal with the problem.
“When they puke, they don’t want to associate themselves with it,” Passen explained.
Additionally, the competitive, achievement-oriented atmosphere of Princeton can prompt students to focus on their goals to the point of forgetting their responsibilities to those around them, many said.
“Sometimes I think because you are so busy it’s easy to get to the point where your sensibility to other people can really become limited,” Frawley explained. “It makes people’s insensitivity understandable. But I am more than willing to remind them of the true consequences of what they’re doing.”
Though he said there has been progress over the last decade or so, Building Services Director Jonathan Baer said that public spaces are still left in “abysmal” condition.
“We would like nothing better than for rooms to be left in reasonable conditions. I’m not even saying perfect, I’m saying reasonable,” he said.
Yet janitor Josue Lajeunesse said that the pressures of Princeton are a common and somewhat justified reason for students’ carelessness, adding that he thinks Princeton students “need to have a little pleasure.”
“The kids here will be the future of the country ... They have a little fun, and I’m not going to say anything about that,” he said. “They’re kids. It’s a part of life.”
But Catherine Rice-Medley, a foreman for Building Services, vehemently disagreed with that perspective.
“You’re not too busy,” she insisted. “If you take the time to urinate in a bottle, you can’t be that busy.” She added that with bathrooms on almost every floor, students cannot argue that their rooms are located too far away from the nearest bathroom to justify using a bottle.
“That’s not being respectful to the janitors or to anybody,” she said. “You may be smart, but you have no common sense.”
Carrico Torres ’14 said she often feels sorry for janitors who have to work on Friday and Monday mornings. “I’ll walk outside Forbes and see all kinds of stuff on the ground,” she said. “Beer cans everywhere and these weird stains on the sidewalks ... I’ve always wondered what they have to deal with the next morning.”
But even when the most egregious messes are made, some janitors have no qualms about cleaning them up. Lajeunesse said he feels no lack of respect from students, but instead believes that his obligations as a janitor include cleaning up those messes.
“We are dedicated to work together with the students,” he said. “A job is a job. We can’t complain.”
For Bowman, however, such incidents carry a significance beyond respect. During appraisals carried out by supervisors, uncleaned messes such as toilet paper and vomit on the floor give the impression that janitors are not doing their jobs, she said.
“We can’t be here 24/7,” she said. “I tell students not to do this, because it affects us. It affects our salaries.”
The janitorial staff currently operates on a merit pay system, where janitors’ salaries are partly determined by the quality of their work as evaluated by supervisors. Baer noted that this standard applies to every employee represented by the Service Employees International Union.
And the daily grind can take its toll on workers. “Sometimes it’s so stressful, I’ve cried,” Bowman said.
Baer commended the dedication of the janitorial staff, noting that certain times of year, such as senior move-out and Reunions, are especially demanding.
“It does concern me that those employees have so much to do and that we have no option other than to succeed and get it done because thousands and thousands of people depend on us,” he added.
Fixing the problem
Raising disciplinary issues and taking action against students is always an unpleasant task — and perhaps even more so when the case at hand involves bodily fluids. Last year, the Forbes College director of student life, Lesley Nye, sent an e-mail to all the students in Forbes about a student “leaving bottles full of urine in our hallways.”
“If this happens one more time, I am calling Public Safety and asking them to investigate the matter,” she wrote. “This could result in the loss of the perpetrator’s housing privileges.”
Consequences for students who commit such offences are, however, generally less dire than revoking housing privileges. Frawley explained that he often sends an e-mail to students who leave messes behind, reminding them about respect for the janitors and cautioning them against committing such offences in the future. He said he is usually pleased with the outcome.
“The reaction of most people is ‘Oh my God, I’m really sorry,’ ” he said, noting that students are generally very ashamed of their actions.
But these e-mails aren’t enough, some janitors argued.
“They’re not really doing anything about it ... It’s just pat them on the wrist and tell them to go their way,” Rice-Medley said, adding that the administration isn’t aware of what janitors go through on a daily basis. “Matt don’t do the trash,” she said.
This manner of dealing with such students has fostered frustration among janitors, causing some to refrain from reporting minor incidents to the residential college offices because “they don’t see enough happening to the student doing it,” Rice-Medley said.
And others, like Bowman, report nothing at all. “I feel like what I say doesn’t matter,” Bowman explained. “I feel that they believe the student before they believe us, if the student says they didn’t do it.”
But Frawley countered the idea that the administration does not take the complaints of janitors seriously.
“I think that when a janitor makes a complaint, we talk with the students and then the problem goes away. We haven’t had repeat problems,” he said. “We try to be as responsive as possible. So that’s sad to hear.”
And Baer explained that, regarding the improvement in recent years, the residential colleges have been the areas “where we’ve seen the most progress.”
“The leadership has done a strong job of supporting us,” Baer said. He added that he has tried to work with the colleges “to really put that reminder out there that, ‘On behalf of the janitors who have to clean it up, please make an effort.’ ”
Bamkole suggested that a more effective way of dealing with the problem might be to encourage students to get to know residential college staff, explaining that it was after she interacted with the janitors in her residential college that she began to feel more of an obligation to leave public spaces clean. Getting gifts for janitors and displaying pictures of residential college staff in public spaces are good ways to accomplish this, she said.
“Right now, there is a no-name person who cleans your bathroom,” she said. “Getting people to think about the person who’s doing it will help ... Just being reminded that this is someone else who is cleaning up after you, not someone random.”
Rice-Medley, however, advocated a more aggressive approach in dealing with offenders.
“Let them do the job that we do,” she said. “People don’t like it too much! We got quite a few [students] that worked with us and they never came back. Now they know how it feels to clean up other people’s mess.” In the past, students were given janitorial duties as community service for certain offenses, Rice-Medley said.
Sims noted that students should not only consider the janitors in thinking about cleanliness. Rather, he said, they should also remember that their fellow students have to encounter the messes they leave behind.
“There’s going to be a student who has to come into this bathroom to see this mess,” she said. “Think: Would I want to deal with this mess as a student? You have to realize that ... it also affects everyone around you.”
And though thoughtlessness is fairly common, Rockefeller College Master Jeff Nunokawa said he sees no evidence that Princeton students are any worse than the rest of the world.
“Think how often you see people acting in ways which simply assume that there’s a silent class of people who will clean up after them,” Nunokawa said. “I think we live in a world filled with injustice and thoughtlessness, and I don’t think the students here are in any sense more thoughtless, less mindful, more contemptuous of those who work hard in service positions than others.”
Lajeunesse echoed Nunokawa’s sentiment, adding that the students he encounters at Princeton are “very good” and “nice kids.” And many students, Nunokawa added, are appalled that these incidents occur at all.
“What surprises me is how often people are sensitive about these things,” Nunokawa said. “I think Princeton students are much better than they know.”
Frawley noted that he likely only hears about more extreme cases of inconsideration and that the student body as a whole is fairly considerate.
“It often is the case where it just takes one jerk to really spoil something,” he said.
Read More
Princeton boosts financial aid despite potential budget cuts, new endowment tax
Devon RudolphThe financial aid increase comes amid a rocky financial picture for many elite universities, which are confronting the loss of research federal funding and an endowment tax passed by Congress in July. It could also reduce Princeton’s tuition-paying student population.
Princeton's recent announcement of a boosted financial aid program could allow the University to be exempt from the recently passed federal endowment tax.
Town Council set to vote on immigrant sanctuary resolution following ICE raids
Justus Wilhoit and Leela HenslerThe Town Council will vote on a resolution affecting ICE cooperation at the meeting on Monday.
The Town Council will vote on a resolution affecting ICE cooperation at the meeting on Monday.
Alumni form mental health council in wake of student deaths
Luke GrippoThe council hopes to work with undergraduates to push for awareness about campus resources. At least four undergraduates at Princeton have died by suicide since 2022.
The council hopes to work with undergraduates to push for awareness about campus resources. At least four undergraduates at Princeton have died by suicide since 2022.