Residential colleges launch Oxford-inspired pilot program

This coming fall, many freshmen will have an additional layer of support during their first year at the University. A subgroup within the Working Group on Campus Social and Residential Life has decided to implement a pilot program that will connect sophomores with the incoming freshmen living in their old dorm rooms.

The Princeton Family system, as it is tentatively called at the moment, is inspired by the student tradition in some colleges at Oxford, where first-year students are assigned willing “parents”: the previous occupants of their dorm rooms. The family trees eventually grow to include “grandparents” and “great-grandparents,” and even include fake marriage proposals and marriages or civil unions among the parents, according to Director of Student Life at Wilson College Michael Olin.

Olin said many University students praised their experiences with the system while studying abroad at Oxford and suggested bringing a similar program to Princeton. At the University, however, sophomores will be assigned to freshmen as “cousins.”

“The idea was brought up by Princeton students who have studied at Oxford,” Olin said. “I simply passed on this idea last year while serving on the Working Group on Campus Social and Residential Life, and the suggestion has gathered quite a bit of support.”

The Princeton Family system will include at least one advisee group in each residential college. Next week, the pilot program subgroup will meet with interested RCAs to determine the scope of the pilot program, Natasha Japanwala ’14, a member of the subgroup, said. The RCAs will then contact their new sophomores about getting involved in the program during the end of this academic year, and members of the Class of 2016 will be contacted during the summer with information on their “cousin” or “cousins.”

The involvement of freshmen and sophomores may vary across different colleges. Subgroup member Amy Li ’14 noted that Whitman College was particularly interested in having more than one RCA group involved.

“I think it’s going to automatically vary from college to college because Wilson, for example, has 11-person suites, while Whitman has a lot of singles,” Japanwala said. “Depending on what kind of room a person has, you could get just one person and develop a strong relationship with one person, or if you’re in a big suite, you could meet 11 new people.”

Incentives, such as free Thomas Sweet vouchers, will be provided to freshmen and sophomores who join the program, Japanwala said. She said that she hopes the coupons will encourage freshmen and sophomores to make “family” outings to Nassau Street together.

“Basically, the idea of this program is to encourage cross-class interactions,” Li said. “A great way to do that is to have freshmen really connect with the people who lived in that freshman dorm so everything ties together by the dorm itself.”

While the students will initially be able to bond over having lived in the same dorm room, Japanwala said that hopefully a natural friendship will emerge after the first two or three outings.

“It always helps to have a friend in a class above you to give you advice,” she added. “I get really attached to spaces, and I spent a year in that dorm. The room itself has its own peculiarities, so it would be fun to see how other people are experiencing that space.”

If the pilot program is successful during the next academic school year, the Princeton Family system may become a University-wide program in which members of the Class of 2014, incoming freshmen and even alumni can eventually become involved.

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“We have some staff members who are helping students with the logistics of setting a Princeton-style system up, but the tradition — should it become a long-standing one — will rest with the students,” Olin said.

Japanwala pointed out that the family network, if expanded, would provide an opportunity for old roommates to reconnect while meeting new people who now occupy their room. Each room would eventually have its own family tree, she explained.

“It has a lot of potential because everyone wonders, ‘Who is in my room now?’ ” Li said. “It’s kind of fun to have this tangible connection to the physical dorm itself.”