Princeton’s Totally Frat-tastic Residential College
It’s official: the administrators in charge of Princeton’s spanking-new Whitman College are on crack. Following up on the Great Mug Emergency of 2008, these fine folks have decided to transform Princeton’s first four-year residential college into a fraternity. For serious.
Taking a cue from the university’s existing frats, Whitman College is asking impressionable freshman to volunteer to become thesis slaves for graduating seniors. It’s like being a pledge but with none of the benefits! The seniors get to force the freshmen to do laundry and fetch them snacks and drop off library books! What do the freshmen get in return? Why, the pleasure of the seniors’ company!
Each participating Whitman senior will be assigned 2 underclassmen who will be “on call” during the final thesis push. If you are working away in your room and feel like you need a midnight snack all you have to do is contact your thesis buddy and he/she will bring you a hot dog and a red bull or whatever else you need to burn the midnight oil.
Obviously, the idea isn’t to take advantage of your buddy, but to have him or her help out in a pinch. Other examples of acceptable duties include: taking care of a load of laundry, picking up/dropping off some library books, or proofreading a chapter for typos.
After the jump: the email in full.
From: Cole M. Crittenden
To:WHITMAN-SENIOR@Princeton.EDU
Subject: thesis help
Whitman Seniors:
Thesis crunch time rapidly approaches and the time has come to draw on one of Whitman’s greatest assets as a 4-year residential college . . . the underclassmen!
We know that the next few months will pose some challenges so we are instituting a new program with the hope that it will make your life slightly easier during the final push. Introducing . . .
WHITMAN THESIS BUDDIES
What is it?
Each participating Whitman senior will be assigned 2 underclassmen who will be “on call” during the final thesis push. If you are working away in your room and feel like you need a midnight snack all you have to do is contact your thesis buddy and he/she will bring you a hot dog and a red bull or whatever else you need to burn the midnight oil.
Obviously, the idea isn’t to take advantage of your buddy, but to have him or her help out in a pinch. Other examples of acceptable duties include: taking care of a load of laundry, picking up/dropping off some library books, or proofreading a chapter for typos. Unacceptable duties would include: attending a class in your stead, cleaning your room, doing your homework, or getting your thesis bound.
How do you sign up?
You can sign up the week before spring break (March 10th – 14th) during dinner in the Whitman Dining Hall. If you have a specific underclassman in mind, (and he or she has agreed to participate) you can indicate your preferred thesis buddy when you sign up. Otherwise, we will try to match you up with someone from your department or someone who lives in your building. RGS Steven Lauritano is helping us organize the thesis buddy program. He’ll be overseeing the sign-up and matching process.
When does it start?
The program goes into effect 3 weeks before your thesis deadline and concludes after you turn it in.”
What’s next? Whitman College’s hell week? Sign up at the dining hall!
23 Comments | 
| 
Print This Post
Read more: Princeton
Email – 
Search
About
Follow us on Twitter
Report a bug
Archives
RSS Feed
February 28th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
May I use my Whitman Thesis Buddy to make witty comments on the Ivygate blog? How would they feel about building snow peni?
February 28th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Where was the picture for this article taken? I don’t recognize the place.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
The picture is actually of Trinity College in Hartford. good work, ivygate.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
read jenna b.’s column in the daily sun
February 28th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
“You there, make a misogynistic sign and throw up some gang symbols outside the women’s center. If you get in trouble just say you’re a thesis slave, they’ll understand. Afterwards, snowstikas! Remember to rotate 45 degrees this time…”
I’m sure this will end brilliantly.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
You’re totally right, that photo is of Trinity! I was going to say, that looks a bit nice for Princeton. Come on, Ivygate…
February 28th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
anyone want to address the substance of the article?
what idiot freshman would sign up for this? seriously. do they get money for doing it?
February 28th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
The Four Year Colleges are the administration’s grand social experiment. The idea is that if students of all years live in proximity to each other, there will be some sort of magical social utopia where everyone interacts. Obviously it doesn’t work that way–people only really hang out with people of different years if they are in the same organization, frat, eating club, sports team, etc. So this daft idea of Thesis Buddies is an effort to force interaction between seniors and freshmen.
I personally would haze the shit out of my freshman if any were dumb enough to sign up for this. But thank goodness I don’t live in Whitman, so that’s not going to be an option.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Wow…this is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard of. Hey, Princeton, I’ve got another idea for you. It’s called the Olympics Triple Cast.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
The photo mistake is Prince-esque. Aren’t you guys above that, IG?
February 28th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Seriously, do the underclassmen get anything at all out of this deal? Mentoring? Work-study credit? Only 7 years of service before they work off their steerage charges?
February 28th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
How could you try to pull off a non-Princeton picture on a Princeton post? Shame on you, Savage. Would have expected more from an alum of Old Nassau.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
“The Four Year Colleges are the administration’s grand social experiment. The idea is that if students of all years live in proximity to each other, there will be some sort of magical social utopia where everyone interacts. Obviously it doesn’t work that way…”
FALSE.
It seems to work just fine over here at Yale.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Boy? Come here, boy. I’m feeling very… anxious. You know what I like when I’m anxious, don’t you? Now, now. Don’t make that face. Just a little blumpkin for Daddy while he thinks of how to word this? Don’t make me call Mr. Crittenden. You know how mad he gets when one of my boys is naughty.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Well, it might be a nice way for freshmen to get to know upperclassmen and vice versa. But really, Princeton kids need to stop stressing out so much about thesis. It is a huge project, generally topping 100-pages of exquisitely written text, but you have a good six months to do it. The people who are busy to the point of stressful nonsense at the end are the ones who haven’t planned well enough or have partied too much during the preceding months. Don’t take your anger about your failures out on a poor frosh.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:24 am
exquisitely written text? come now. it’s a crap paper that isn’t worth shit.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:20 am
Maybe to you it isn’t worth shit because you put no effort into this paper whatsoever. But don’t speak for the rest of us. Just because you choose to produce a meaningless thesis does not mean that everyone does the same.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:04 am
A “hot dog”?
Yes, I’m sure that refers to food.
Or, perhaps, this:
“Boy? Come here, boy. I’m feeling very… anxious. You know what I like when I’m anxious, don’t you? Now, now. Don’t make that face. Just a little blumpkin for Daddy while he thinks of how to word this? Don’t make me call Mr. Crittenden. You know how mad he gets when one of my boys is naughty.”
February 29th, 2008 at 11:20 am
what a stupid idea. I thought Princeton had more integrity…guess not
February 29th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
wtf does this have to do with integrity? and btw, if freshmen volunteer to help seniors with their theses, i’m sure they get perks like passes
February 29th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Yeah, as long as they keep it volunteer on the part of the freshmen, it sounds like a good idea to me. The last few years there has been an informal “proofread my thesis” exchange run by the USG, where underclassmen volunteer to proofread theses.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
http://images.google.com/images?q=whitman+college&um=1&hl=en&start=21&sa=N&ndsp=21
and here’s where they found it.
stupid ivygate. do your homework.
March 1st, 2008 at 4:15 am
See, I don’t think they would get passes, because by the very nature of these seniors living in a residential college, not only would they not be in a club but also ultimately probably completely socially unconnected