Princeton: Changing Underclass Years

In 1907 President Woodrow Wilson submitted to Princeton's Board of Trustees his famous Quadrangle plan which proposed the abolition of the eating clubs quadrangle plan which proposed the abolition of the eating clubs and the establishment of residential quadrangles for undergraduates, a resident master, and preceptors. The trustees greeted the proposals enthusiastically. Their passage seemed virtually assured until the alumni spoke out. Traditionally a powerful voice in Princeton affairs, they objected to ending the club system and generally to raising the necessary $2,000,000. Wilson took his campaign for the "quads" across the country, but to no avail. The trustees bowed to the alumni objections and shelved the plan

This fall, nearly half a century later, Nassau Hall regrets Wilson's defeat and watches with some envy the successful house and college plans of its must cope with academic and social problems which these visionary proposals might have eliminated.

A New Undergraduate

The most outstanding of these problems is a new Princeton undergraduate. No longer does he represent the eastern, upperclass graduates of private preparatory schools, but a broad, heterogeneous group drawn from the entire nation. Princeton's problem is fitting; this new type of student into a traditional club system in a small, closely-knit undergraduate community, whose most distinctive feature is its self-contained insularity.

Until the last decade Princeton has felt its residential college and educational environment fitted its undergraduates as well if not better than the most successful house plan. After all, Harvard and Yale had more students and stood in the midst of bustling cities. What need had Princeton to divide its compact undergraduate life when everyone lived five minutes walk from everyone else on a green, tree-covered campus?

With modifications this is still Princeton's theory. But it must be applied to students who are accustomed to their own car at home, to frequent dating, and who come to Princeton after positions of leadership in school. In the 1930's over 80 percent of its undergraduates came from private schools. Today the percent has dropped to almost 50.

At college these men find they are somewhat restricted to the campus. They notice that the upperclass years in the clubs are socially better than freshman and sophomore years. And they see that this social difference has been partially carried over into the curriculum, where they spend two rather directionless years building a broad educational base for upperclass concentration.

Twenty-five years ago no complained about these divisions since the majority of the undergraduates came from similar backgrounds and did similar things. But today they have become official headaches. Building a house system as a solution would be a $10,000,000 project which Dean of Students William Lippincott calls a bout as realistic as pressing a $10,000,000 button on a slot machine.

Nassau Hall feels it must find a more practical solution. This will probably be the New Chandler Green student center which officially opened this fall. In this converted library Princeton hopes it has part of the answer to its underclass problem. Not allowed in clubs until their junior year, the underclassmen have had no place to entertain guests or cat with the faculty on the campus. This center with its restaurant, recreation room, and lounging alcoves was completed this fall for just this purpose.

Nassau Hall hopes its importance will carry beyond merely providing social focus for freshmen and sophomores. "We hope it will provide a better educational environment for all our hope it will provide a better educational environment for all our undergraduates," Dean of the College Francis R. B. Godolphin explains. "We hope the new center will help fuzz the social line between sophomores and juniors. We want our professors and students to consider it a convenient place to hold their precepts."

The President's Committee

Princeton considers this a significant step toward catering to its new undergraduate without reverting to any form of house plan. But for the visionary this is too limited a solution. Dean Godolphin is one of the first to point out that Princeton must make of other adjustments. As he puts it, "The old men's college just isn't what it used to be Our concept of a traditional men's education is undergoing some radical changes. We're having to reorient our thinking."

Part of this reorientation will undoubtedly come from the fifteen-man President's Committee to Study the Undergraduate Years. This group of four deans and 11 faculty members, plus President Dodds, began work this fall and plans to report late next year. In many respects their work resembles that of Yale's Committee on General Education, which published its controversial plan A and plan B a year ago, although the committee's final report will probably be less revolutionary.

The group plans to investigate all phases of undergraduate life, ranging from underclass curriculum, admissions, and the dormitory system, to perennial undergraduate gripes over parietal rules, compulsory chapel, and the car ban. These rules have gotten a "new look" for years, but in its present frame of mind, the University wants assurances that they are sound.

For the moment, the faculty is soled on the upperclass curriculum. It consists of beginning concentration in the Junior year. This is different from Harvard, where concentration begins a year earlier. As a junior a candidate for the A.B. degree must write at least one 7-10,000 word paper in his major. This comes in addition to a senior these is which is required from every man in order to graduate. At Princeton the faculty does not distinguish between honors and non-honors candidates.

But the committee does plan a careful survey of the freshman and sophomore program. Under the distribution program adopted in 1947, freshmen must take courses in the four fields of social sciences, natural sciences, art and literature, and history, philosophy, and religion. At sophomores the latter fields are condensed under the humanities. This broad training closely resembles Harvard's General education program without Gen Ed Ahf.

The committee particularly wants to know whether by starting concentration a year earlier it can give undergraduates a greater direction in their studies. The group is also considering putting in more precepts in the lowerclass years.

Precepts resemble Harvard's section meeting except they are smaller (usually six students) and lead by a high-ranking member of the faculty (Usually a professor). These precepts, established in 905 by President Wilson, are the heart of the upperclass years and perhaps the most distinctive feature of Princeton's undergraduate education. The precept emphasizes logical thinking rather than factual knowledge. It is a time in the Princeton education when a professor can discover and correct any misconception in his students' minds while stimulating their reading interests.

Keep College Small

To be effective a precept must be small. Following World War II Princton's enrollment increased by 50 percent and put la terrific strain on the faculty and on the precept. As President Doods puts it, "something went out of the system which Princeton doesn't want to lose again." Accordingly, the President's Committee expects to report in June on how to keep down the enrollment to a maximum of 2900 an still meet the huge increase in war-baby students who will apply by the 1960's. Princeton is proud of the amount of time its best professors put in with their students who will apply by the 1960's. Princeton is proud of the amount of time its best professors put in with their students. President Dodds says his faculty lectures the average only 10 percent of their working hours.

Outside of Princeton's academic life, the President's committee still has serious problems, particularly in orienting the new undergraduate to the campus social life. Some of these social problems were pointed out in an article, "The Underclass Years" written by S. Roy Heath, psychologist, and director of the Advisee Project for the Class of 1954 at Princeton.

"It would be incorrect to imply that Princeton is facing a totally new problem in its underclass years," Heath wrote in the October, 1953, Alumni Weekly. "But the many sources of information available to the University attest to the fact that somehow since World War II the problem is reaching more serious proportions."

He referred to "insufficient wheel space" as the reason why former high school leaders find themselves restricted socially and academically on the campus. They are good bets for what Admissions Director William Edwards calls "high frustration potential" in their transition from school to college.

Since Heath's report many steps have been taken to alleviate these problems of the underclass years. The Campus Center is up, and freshmen are now allowed to participate in extra curricular activities from the opening of college.

Exactly how much undergraduate life will change is uncertain. This social and academic self-analysis will have important effects in some quarters, but leave others untouched. One of these latter will undoubtedly be the traditional idea of the Princeton Gentleman. His place on the campus in as sanctified as that of the Harvard Individual in Cambridge.

The history of this gentlemanly ideal goes back before the turn of the country when Princeton introduced its honor system. Today this sixty-year old system is considered one of the college's most cherished institutions. It is based on the principles that every man is on his honor not to give or receive aid in an examination; and that any student observing an infraction of this rule is honor bound to report it.

If the gentlemanly ideal origination in freshman year, then it is doubly strengthened during the last two years when juniors and seniors join an upperclass eating club. Here in the gracious atmosphere of linen tablecloths and heavy leather chairs the upperclassman eats, entertains his female friends, and holds his parties.

These 17 club, located as they are, outside the campus proper, have a unique relationship with Nassau Hall. Over the last thirty years the University has relied on them to feed its upperclassmen. But since they are privately owned and run by their own board of trustees, the university treats them with kid gloves.

Fifty years ago President Wilson wanted to abolish the club system as undemocratic. At that time one third of the upperclassmen were excluded from membership. Gradually the clubs have relaxed their restrictions and under administration pressure agreed to take a larger percentage of the college. This fall for the first time in the 100-year history of the clubs, every undergraduate who wanted a bid got and accepted one.

100% Join

The new 100 percent system has not come without adjustments and complaints. In particular, the more exclusive clubs object to having to take in less desirable messmates while those fur the down the social hierarchy resent getting the leftovers. But these adjustments are small in comparison to the value of giving every upperclassman a regular place to eat. Fifty years late, the new system has proved Wilson's charges partially wrong.

It was the Daily Princetonian which restated another Wilson objection to the system. In a series of editorials on titled "The Princeton Man and His Education," the paper wrote that "To a European, the most noticeable fact about the Princeton clubs is their tendency almost completely to isolate social from intellectual pursuits which form the raison d'etre of the University." The paper explained that when an upperclassman stepped out of Firestone Library or his dormitory, and crossed Washington Road to Prospect Street, he left behind him his books and his intellectual education.

Campus Center?

Yale and Harvard have avoided this split through their House and College plans, where students and faculty live, eat, and sometimes study together.

But by its very physical set-up the colleges makes this ideal difficult except in the perceptional meeting or the new Campus center. For upperclassmen eat by themselves in their clubs and live in dormitories without faculty. And the lowerclassmen eat by themselves and also live in dormitories without faculty.

No one has a clear solution to the divisions.

With all this talk and investigation, there are still some who say Princeton was good enought thirty years ago and it's good enough now.

But they are few and dying fast.

More than over the Administration is concerned with college adjustments within the large educational community of Princeton, N. J. The college and the graduate school share the same faculty but unlike the Harvard situation the two bodies have little influence on each other. The college within its rectangular block and the graduate school remains across Alexander Street.

Some thrive and others want to get out on the open road. The majority of students complain that the no car restriction isolates them from New York and Philadelphia. They feel the requirement of compulsory Chapel or Church every other week is tampering with their religious freedom. And many think the University is childish to force women out of their rooms at 7 p.m.

But most recognize that Princeton is a small community which never has and probably never will permit the social freedom of Cambridge and New Haven. The College wants to adjust its social scale to fit the times and the undergraduates as fairly as possible. It also wants to adhere to traditional Princeton social customs. How successfully it will do this through the Campus Center and the President's committee remains to be seen.

For President Wilson, at least, any final adjustment will be second best to one he proposed half a century ago. Wore he alive today, the great Princeton educator undoubtedly would have said. "I told you so."In the afternoon on the campus historle Blair Arch frames Locknart Hall