Smart and rich remains the image of PU student

Panel at university examines the stereotypes and the reality.

By: Jeff Milgram
   What do people think of Princeton University students?
   They think Princeton men are jocks, rich, smart or their parents are connected. They think Princeton women are white, thin and easy.
   That’s what Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis, director of the University Health Service’s SHARE sexual harassment program, said — not entirely seriously — Wednesday night.
   Dr. Bryant-Davis was one of five participants in a panel discussion of "Who Is Princeton? Confronting the Stereotypes," sponsored by the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, the university’s political and debating society. Dozens of students filled the Whig Hall Senate Chamber to listen to the discussion.
   Dr. Bryant-Davis pressed the point several times that students should not let other people define them.
   "Who do you say you are?" she asked repeatedly. "I hope you are intellectuals who are not afraid of spirituality."
   Dr. Bryant-Davis urged the students to fight against racism, sexism, sexual violence and homophobia.
   "I hope those who are first-generation college students feel they are part of the Princeton landscape," she said.
   One student who might not feel accepted is Aaron Bianco, who readily admits he is a poor Mexican kid from California, a world away from the privileged lives of some Princeton students.
   He applied to one school — Princeton — seeking a college where the competition was tough, and was accepted as part of the early admission process.
   "As long as you can compete with the best, you can hang with the best," he said. "I want to make it better for my race. I want to make it better for everyone."
   He admits that he doesn’t like all the people he has met at Princeton.
   "Sometimes, I get to know you enough and I still don’t like you," he said.
   "What is a Princeton student? It’s nothing like it was 20 years ago," Mr. Bianco, former president of Princeton’s Chicano Caucus, said.
   English Professor John V. Fleming said, "There is some usefulness in having valid generalizations. It isn’t a stereotype that Princeton students have high SAT scores, it’s a fact."
   He said elitism is rampant in the selection process, not only of students, but of faculty. The university receives 350 applications for each faculty opening, he said.
   "You’re really fooling yourself if you think you’re not elite," he said. But, Professor Fleming said, "Much should be expected from those who have received a great deal."
   Antoinette Seaberry, vice president-elect of the Class of 2005, is the first generation of her family to go to college. She is black. Her roommate, who is white, comes from a family that has been sending students to Princeton for generations.
   Were she not at Princeton, Ms. Seaberry said she would probably never have come in contact with someone like her roommate.
   "From the outsider’s perspective, Princeton equals legacy, not diversity," Ms. Seaberry said. But, she said, it’s getting better.
   "I decided to come here because the university is headed in the right direction," she said. "We have to have a nice array of people."
   Keith Light, who worked at Stanford and Harvard before becoming associate dean of admissions at Princeton, said all campuses have stereotypes, but they never define the majority of students.
   "You’re a rarified crowd," he told the students.