On the Campus - February 10, 1999
Website Exclusives...
A hypothetical
Princeton
How a few students would choose to change the
university
by Nancy Smith '00
The last page of every issue of George
magazine is devoted to the hypothetical side of politics, asking popular
celebrities like Kate Moss, Pamela Anderson, or Maya Angelou what they would
do if they were President. The column is always a favorite of mine, as it
reveals either the shallowness of the guest or the shortcomings of the political
establishment. But I find it more interesting in the latter case. So in
the spirit of finding astuteness in unexpected voices, I'll devote my column
to the hypothetical side of Princeton. In proposing changes to the academic,
social, and especially structural aspects of the university, rarely does
the administration look to students for initial suggestions of what could
be improved. One afternoon during exam periodprobably the most opportune
time to solicit student complaintsI found an opportune placethe vestibule
of Firestone Libraryto take the microphone to the masses. The answers I
jotted down drew on every conceivable aspect of Princeton, some proposals
echoing the sentiments of many generations, others no doubt inspired by
groggy pontification in the wee hours of Dean's Date.
I'll start with the obvious: "They
should re-evaluate having exams after break. Or at least tell the students
whybecause I don't think students really know" the reasoning behind
the policy, offered one senior, himself struggling with the logic of the
two papers and two exams that made his winter vacation "miserable."
However if I may insert an editorial comment under the guise of civic journalism
I think the fact that this response was so common should underscore, not
undermine, its relevance. (Hint, hint, Hal.)
Other ideas in the academic category included
making it more feasible to study abroad and tailoring language courses more
toward conversation instead of to the analysis of literature. This student,
who would like to have gone to Spain, felt confined to this side of the
Atlantic by the dreaded Junior Paper.
ANOTHER TWO WEEKS AND FACULTY MENTORS
One sophomore would like to have at least
two weeks added to the academic year. "If you're going to a top-name
university, you should get the most out of your academic experience,"
he said. As an engineer, he could use a couple of extra weeks to either
cover more material in his courses or to cover the material more thoroughly.
Another sophomore, pondering the upcoming
deadline for declaring her major, wished she could have had a stronger academic
advising program during her first two years, starting with a faculty mentor
in her area of interest.
Several students commented on Princeton's
menu of upperclass eating options. A sophomore woman, who faces the all-important
dining decision next month, wishes there were an upperclass dining hall.
One junior, though herself a member of
Terrace, was "not too fond of the eating clubs in general, and how
all social life on campus is centered around them." As an alternative,
she suggested the university experiment with four-year residential colleges.
"I'm not sure if it would be a good thing or a bad thing," she
conceded, "but it would definitely bring about a different social dynamic"
and would be worth trying.
On the other hand, one Ivy Club member
thinks the university "should leave the eating clubs alone." The
administration should not be so concerned about the liabilities associated
with alcohol consumption at the "Street," she said, because the
clubs are a relatively safe environment, eliminating the possibility of
drunk driving. "The clubs are such an incredible part of this school,
with dedicated alumni, and I think [the administration] is interfering too
much," she said.
PUB AND DINER
In the realm of structural additions, a
couple of library patrons had some suggestions for the new Frist Campus
Center, scheduled for completion in the fall of 2000. At the top of the
wish list were a pub and a 24-hour diner. Many students would like to see
the campus made more accessible for pedestrians, bicycles, and cars. "They
should increase the number of blue-light [emergency] phones, especially
in secluded areas," suggested one woman. She would also like to see
the student parking lotscurrently a 20-minute hike from most dormsmade more
convenient, perhaps with a more frequent or predictable shuttle route. Another
student wished the campus landscape could be made more bicycle-friendly.
Gravel, narrow, and crowded paths, blind corners and stairs now make commuting
from class to class a danger and a hassle. Students would also like more
"concrete" support from the university for their extracurricular
activities. One sophomore, who is active in drama, finds it "sad that
a school like this with so many talented people has nothing to work with"
in the form of theater space. She found the lacking theater to be the symptom
of a larger problem: "The arts get no respect."
Another student, who does not play a varsity
sport but still uses the gym in his free time, wishes Princeton could provide
nicer weight-training facilities for its "amateur" athletes. Ice
and winter slush also elicited a few weather-related responses. One student,
already thinking of spring, wished there were more places on campus where
students could gather outside. Another victim of the winter blues--my roommate,
who'd seen too many angst-ridden days at her computer in pajamas--wished
the entire campus could be relocated to California. I reminded her that
she should be used to New Jersey winters by now, having grown up near Atlantic
City, and that she might want to consider something more feasible for the
suggestion box.
(illustration by Chris Brooks)
Contrarian journalist
Visiting professor Nat Hentoff challenges students to think for themselves
by Kruti Trivedi '00
Walking into seminar the first crunchy-crisp day of autumn, I tried
to act nonchalant about meeting Washington Post columnist Nat Hentoff.
Getting into his application-only, dozen-member course, The Press and Social
Issues, had been difficult, and I had no idea what to expect from the man
himself. Or what he expected from us.
I prepared to meet him, expecting to greet him in the usual Princeton
way -- a quick smile, a firm handshake, and with an assumption that famous
people are as interested in meeting you as you are in meeting them. My pre-handshake
palms were even clammier than usual because Hentoff isn't just famous, he
has a special brand of notoriety all his own.
He's a civil liberties activist who left the board of the ACLU, a jazz
critic who had the privilege of a close friendship with composer Charles
Mingus, a bestselling children's book author, and a nationally syndicated
columnist who's been accused by the dean of a law school of lying.
He's a secular-bible thumper who keeps a small copy of the Constitution
in his pocket, a New Yorker who will never lose his accent, an old-school
hip bearded fellow who blows his nose using a fluorescent green bandanna
he keeps stuffed into his pocket.
But above all, Hentoff is a unique brand of teacher. Though he may have
had the title of visiting professor, Hentoff seemed at times as much a soapbox
orator as an educator.
My first sense of strangeness was getting a syllabus that noted we would
study "the coverage of the president, both in his official acts and
his recreational life." One of the nicest things that Hentoff said
about Clinton was that he lies. Hillary Clinton once phoned Hentoff with
an invitation to the White House, but after he wrote a less than beaming
column about her husband, Hentoff said, the formal invitation "got
lost in the mail."
As he likes to point out, he offends almost everyone equally. For three
hours every Monday, we scrutinized the gamut of topics that most people
wouldn't bring up in polite company. Each of the handful of students in
the class took offense to at least one of the many things Hentoff said,
whether it was his pro-life stance, his rejection of affirmative action,
his skewering of Princeton for assuming Peter Singer had "a rationality
beyond his own obsession," or his even more brutal roasting of "multiculturalism."
Hentoff isn't afraid of controversy; lately he's been peddling a children's
book no one will publish because of its frank approach to racism as it is
played out in the school lunchroom.
He taught our class the way he writes his column -- by telling stories
about folks such as a reporter covering a modern-day witch hunt in Wenatchee,
Washington, or a school teacher in New Jersey who berated a little boy because
he brought a Bible to storytime. Each story taught us something about journalism,
the Constitution, or our own biases. Though he never ended with an implicit
moral, we knew that we would find one if we looked hard enough.
The first story he told us was about a spat he had with the dean of the
University of Washington Law School. At a faculty luncheon last spring,
where Hentoff was the guest speaker, the dean had told him, within earshot
of the other law faculty, that a young woman who was denied admission would
have been accepted if she were black.
Hentoff, who enjoys going for the jugular, wrote about the dean's admission
in his national column. The dean found himself in trouble. So he countered
that Hentoff had lied. Hentoff continued to write about the dean and unfair
admission practices at the law school. As a would-be hack, I thought it
was a great story. After all, one of the few nightmares I had this summer,
when I worked as an intern at the Seattle Post Intelligencer, involved
picking up a phone and hearing a scratchy voice on the other ending screaming,
"Lies! You've written a bunch of lies!"
I went into the class looking for a fine-tuning in my writing; I came
out with a hazy notion of journalistic ethics. When Hentoff read our weekly
papers ("a couple of pages on anything you think is important"),
he was far more interested in our sense of news than our command of commas.
"The main problem with journalism is that there are stories out
there too tough to handle," he explained. "People don't want to
hear about it. Practicing 'community journalism' is dumb: Give them what
they need to know."
Even after such a long stint in the business, Hentoff is still an enthusiastic
fighter. He tried to instill that fighting spirit in us, charging the press
with being "the surrogates that will guarantee democracy."
Kruti Trivedi has interned with the legal department of the ACLU of
Chicago.
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