A few years ago, a friend of mine named Noah Riner got himself in big trouble over a speech he gave at Dartmouth College’s Opening Exercises. He was president of the Dartmouth student body at the time, and focused his welcome address to incoming freshmen on the importance of character development in college. “If all we get from this place is knowledge, we’ve missed something,” he said. “There’s one subject that you won’t learn about in class, one topic that orientation didn’t cover, and that your UGA won’t mention: character.” That wasn’t really the controversial part. Noah then spent the rest of his speech developing the argument that the best example of character, in his opinion, was — and is — Jesus Christ. The bloggers had a field day.
In context, it wasn’t all that shocking that Noah’s speech caused such a stir. What’s surprising to me, though, is that his remarks about Jesus seemed to distract people from what I see as his truly controversial, implicit claim: that the modern day, 21st century university ought to be held responsible for students’ holistic moral education. That contention was accepted at face value by more or less everyone. And though I happen to agree with it, holding the university responsible for students’ moral development means having to decide whose morals to teach. Judging by the rest of his speech, I think Noah might have a problem with inculcating Dartmouth students with a non-Christian system of ethics.
While it’s tough to imagine a USG president at Princeton ever invoking religious arguments in the way Noah did, the law of unintended consequences is hardly unique to Dartmouth. What I’d like to do here is to argue against the tendency of Princeton students, especially in these pages, to make unreasonable demands of the University without thinking about the consequences of the demands they make. There are two such kinds of demands I thought I’d focus on.
The first kind of unreasonable claim that Princeton students often make is to hold the University responsible for “failing to fulfill” a role that universities were never meant to fulfill in the first place. It’s usually of the following form: Princeton is an outstanding university, which produces outstanding graduates; therefore, Princeton ought to mold its students in fashion X.
While I respect him deeply, Brandon McGinley’s latest column, “Marital Responsibilities,” immediately comes to mind. Independent of the problem of justification — that is, why it ought to be the University’s duty to mold students into effective spouses — is the massive problem of implementation. McGinley dismisses this at the end of his piece by adding, almost as an afterthought: “I don’t know precisely how to accomplish this, but a conversation ought to be started.” So, how exactly should Princeton “prepare us for marriage”? And if the University should prepare us for married life, why not prepare us for all manner of other things as well — like having children? Ironically, McGinley, a self-described conservative, seems to have chucked the idea of personal responsibility altogether.
Second, plenty of students here expect the University to move considerably faster than it’s accustomed to — or, in some instances, than it should. Greg Burnham got it dead right on Monday when he wrote that Princeton is in perpetual flux. But while buildings are replaced, memories fade, and students graduate (which, by the way, is a serious problem for shows like “Friday Night Lights,” or “Freaks and Geeks,” or movies like “High School Musical” … not), institutionalized inertia is very much a part of Princeton’s history. After all, the University didn’t admit African-Americans until 1947 or women until 1969: Both disappointing reminders of how slowly things here change.
In some instances, though, moving too quickly has serious disadvantages. Take, for instance, the USG’s plan to cancel this fall’s Lawnparties concert, which was moving at a breakneck pace last spring until the revelation that it was the Pace Center, not Annual Giving, which was truly strapped for cash. Shooting first and asking questions later is likelier than not a recipe for disaster. And there are certainly instances in which thoughtful deliberation and intentional hesitance aren’t so counterproductive. While I rejected the notion of a paper quota outright last spring, the quota in its current manifestation is far from unnecessarily constrictive. It will be even more palatable when some kind of application process for quota exceptions is set up. Much of the strength of the current plan derives from the lengthy process the USG and OIT employed in its design.
None of this is meant to suggest that criticism of the University is inherently bad: far from it. Student criticism, especially when expressed through media like the ‘Prince,’ is a valuable check on University authority and is especially important when Nassau Hall or West College (or anybody else for that matter) get things wrong. But all too often, this page is filled with unreasonable — and even perhaps unnecessary — criticism of a University administration which does an excellent job most of the time.
Oh, and while this might sound like heresy, I’d be curious to know what commenters think about the “University promoting moral education” bit. All commenters, that is, except “butler proud.” We’re still not on speaking terms.
Charlie Metzger is a sophomore from Palm Beach, Fla. He can be reached at cmetzger@princeton.edu.
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