We are currently in a recession, and I understand that everybody needs to make sacrifices. While I am no fan of sacrificing what I have, I’m willing to do with less for my $50,000. I’m willing to have fewer and smaller study breaks and reduced hours in some study spaces. In fact, I’m willing to deal with many of the other cost-cutting measures around campus. I prefer to have basic hygiene, however. When I go to a toilet, I want there to be toilet paper. When I am finished with my business, I want to wash my hands with soap, dry my hands with paper towels and throw the paper in the trash. These objectives are becoming increasingly difficult to achieve.
My dorm, Buyers Hall, has two bathrooms, with a total of one urinal, three toilets, three soap dispensers and three paper towel dispensers. Last weekend, only one stall had toilet paper, only one dispenser had paper towels and there was no soap. Not being able to wash my hands sounds like the joke about the Harvard student who washes his hands before leaving the restroom. “At Harvard, they teach us to wash our hands after we urinate,” he says, and the Princeton student who leaves without washing his hands replies, “At Princeton, they teach us not to pee on our hands.”
The fault does not lie with the janitorial staff but rather with the University administration. Layoffs and hour reductions have meant that the janitorial staff cannot maintain the bathrooms as often. We should not have to make this sacrifice. Princeton’s endowment has not fallen so much that we are required to give up toilet paper, soap or paper towels on the weekends. Students are still able to get up to 10 condoms at once from McCosh Health Center for free. In a recent column, Joel Alicea ’10 commented that the campus culture “puts sex on par with a handshake.” Ironically, the University is doing more to protect having sex than shaking hands.
The administration can institute cost-saving measures in other areas to avoid having to lay off janitors. Lowering the thermostats in every building by a degree or two would save up to 5 percent on the heating bill. I am often annoyed when I wear a jacket biking to class and then need to take it off because the classroom is too warm. I understand that some people would object to having a cooler classroom environment, but having to keep a sweater on is a small price to pay for being able to shake somebody else’s hand without worrying about swine flu.
Lowering the thermostat has two benefits: It saves money, and it is good for the environment. This example leads us to discuss the behemoth of spending that is eating away at the budget during this recession: sustainability. Princeton has a 10-year goal to spend $40 million on sustainability. While some of that money is a wise investment in energy efficiency that will lower bills in the long run, projects that have a large up-front cost with small future savings should be postponed until Princeton has more money to spend. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to spend money on these sustainability pursuits when students’ basic needs are not being met.
Instead of spending so much money on ventures such as sustainability, excessively heated rooms and even our sacred study breaks, the University should spend money to rehire laid-off staff members or increase the hours of those whose hours have been involuntarily reduced. That way, Princeton will be directly giving back to the community by restoring jobs and helping families that need to feed their children and pay their rent. It will also be nice to have toilet paper.
Will Harrel is a freshman from Houston, Texas. He can be reached at wharrel@princeton.edu.
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