Princeton, U. team up in exchange

In spite of their intense rivalries in football and basketball, the University and Princeton are hoping a new exchange program between their graduate schools will be a winner for both sides. Plans for the program, in which University graduate students take classes at Princeton University and vice versa, were finalized over the summer. The proposal for the program came from David Redman, associate dean for graduate studies at Princeton. Students have the option of going to the other school to take individual courses -- or complete a full semester or academic year -- according to Janice Madden, vice provost for graduate studies. While only two University students are currently taking courses at Princeton, she said, more are applying to get involved. "The students have been elated," she said. David Brownlee, chairperson of the Art History graduate group, said the exchange program enables students from each school to take advantage of opportunities that would not otherwise be available to them. "We're neighboring institutions," he said. "As it happens, they have strengths that we don't have and we have strengths that they don't have." Gary Hatfield, chairperson of the Philosophy Department, called the program "a low-cost way of expanding opportunities." Though the program only started this semester, the idea is not a new one, according to Donald Fitts, director of the graduate division of the School of Arts and Sciences. "I had discussed the possibility of this a number of years ago with the people at Princeton," he said. "We had just never gotten around to put it together until recently." Both Brownlee and Fitts mentioned that the program is especially useful today with the current trend in graduate education toward keeping faculty sizes static. Julia Shear, a graduate student in Archeology, is one of the students already involved in the program. She is taking a course at Princeton on Mycenean archeology, a class which she calls "pretty specialized." "It fits in with my interests and that's why I'm taking it," she said. Shear added that she would "certainly encourage everybody" to take advantage of the program. For years, the University has had an exchange program with Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr colleges. For the most part, though, this program has taken place on the undergraduate level. Madden said an exchange program for the entire Ivy League will be formalized at a meeting of Ivy League graduate school deans, scheduled for the end of the month. Students would be able to go to other Ivy schools for a semester or academic year, she said. And while the University and Princeton will be a part of the Ivy League pact, they will maintain a separate agreement as well. "Penn and Princeton are so close that it's literally possible for students to stay enrolled at Penn and take a course at Princeton, and vice versa," she said.