<p>Can anyone explain the eating clubs to me? They sound so exclusionary, if that’s a word.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~ppf/guide.html[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/~ppf/guide.html</a> That pamphlet, though slightly out of date, is a start. From now on, whether or not a student chooses to join, the financial aid office will calculate as part of its grant package the extra $2000 it costs to join an eating club. Also, as the four-year residential colleges get up and running, more students will choose to keep their campus meal plans, and some will divide their time between an eating club and campus. </p>
<p>There was a newer pamphlet but it appears to be “under construction,” maybe because of the new financial aid decision.</p>
<p>It’s hard to call the clubs “exclusionary,” since 75 percent of the upperclassmen do join. Some are harder to get into than others because of higher demand. For the most part, students tend to sign in or or bicker a club where their friends are. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/main/campuslife/housingdining/upperclass/[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/main/campuslife/housingdining/upperclass/</a></p>
<p>aparent5 - I echo your post #16 and as a freshman parent also like the fact that the Street somewhat “contains” the partying. My son went there a few times during the first two or three weeks to see what all of the fuss was about, but realized that, for the most part, it wasn’t his idea of a good time. He asked for sub-free housing and although he didn’t “officially” get it, has found that most of his dormmates also asked for it so they find their own ways of having fun that don’t involve alcohol or drugs. He loves the cultural opportunites on campus and has thus far gone to various lectures, seen Kofi Annan and Meryl Strrep speak, and taken advantage of the $25 trips to NYC to the Met and Broadway. His socializing also seems to be growing around his ECs and classmates who share common interests with him. So far we have been impressed with the down to earth kids and realisic spending limits that most seeem to have. Not at all what the stereotype of P’ton still seeems to be, at least in his and our experiences so far.</p>
<p>Feature article on Mawcawber Books and the crisis for independent booksellers. I think this story is of interest to many of us because of the changing cultural landscape of Nassau Street and the Princeton experience.</p>
<p>"Micawber opened in 1981, when Princeton was an old-money kind of place, with independently owned shops lining Nassau Street, adjacent to the picturesque Princeton University campus. “When we first came, every store on this street was a 15-, 20-year entrenched old-family business,” Mr. Fox said.</p>
<p>Today that same thoroughfare is dominated by chain stores like Ann Taylor and Foot Locker. Micawber Books, with its purple walls and its alien name, which comes from Dickens? novel David Copperfield, is the one that sticks out now.</p>
<p>Half the store is devoted to secondhand books and other vintage publications, like a stack of Archie comics on the register. The other half is new books, a well-edited mix that includes fiction, history, children?s books and the occasional concession to popular taste, like Rachael Ray’s Express Lane Meals. (There are also stalwarts, evidenced by the back wall of shelves lined with Penguin Classics.)</p>
<p>Mr. Fox is proudly from the old school of bookselling. He says he has only been inside a Barnes & Noble store three times. (“I can’t do it,” he said, grimacing.)" </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/books/03mica.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/books/03mica.html</a></p>