Charge: Working Group on Campus Social and Residential Life

By Staff on Sept. 20, 2010, 4 p.m.

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In its May 2010 report, the Task Force on Relationships Between the University and the Eating Clubs made a number of observations and recommendations regarding undergraduate on-campus social and residential life at Princeton. In so doing, the task force also raised more fundamental questions about the goals of the University with respect to social and residential life.

I believe it is both timely and important to ask a working group of students, faculty, and staff to review the University's goals regarding undergraduate on-campus social and residential life and to examine, among other topics, the following issues that were raised by the task force: How can undergraduate social and residential life be enhanced and improved on campus? How can the University enrich the social and residential experience in the residential colleges? What is and should be the role of fraternities and sororities at Princeton? Is it desirable, and if so, feasible to reintroduce a campus pub?

These questions are timely in part because they arose out of the campus-wide conversation that was facilitated last year by the Eating Club Task Force, and in part because the four-year residential college system is now fully in place, as are other recent additions to campus life like the Carl Fields Center and Campus Club. As was done by the Eating Club Task Force, I hope the working group will provide ample opportunity for members of the campus community to offer comments, perspectives and suggestions, and I hope it will be able to complete its work and issue its report during the spring semester.

The co-chairs of the working group will be Cynthia Cherrey, our new vice president for campus life, and Vice President and Secretary Robert Durkee, who chaired the Eating Club Task Force and co-chaired an earlier Task Force on Health and Well-Being. I will be consulting closely with the president of the Undergraduate Student Government in naming undergraduate members of the working group. My hope is that the working group will be fully constituted by early September and will be able to begin its work shortly thereafter.

President Shirley M. Tilghman
September 2010

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