Introduction Written by Michelle Brown, Customer Service Manager, The Service Point

The Service Point is approaching its two-year anniversary! For those who have not yet had an opportunity to visit us on the A Level of New South, watch the following video to see what a typical day looks like for our staff at The Point!

COVID Safety Notice:
All video participants followed University protocols and guidance that were in place at the time of filming. Staff removed face coverings only when speaking to the camera and when it was safe to do so. Those without speaking roles kept face coverings on and maintained a safe distance.

Video Credits:

Script written and developed by Michelle Brown

The Service Point Team

• Michelle Brown, Customer Service Manager
• Jenna Glass, Service Coordinator
• Michael Hebditch, Solutions Specialist
• Jazmine James, Service Coordinator
• Chris Lentz, Director, Customer Experience
• Emma Marshall, Service and Solutions Advisor
• MartiAnn Schenck, Service Coordinator
• Julie Whalen, Solutions Specialist

Also Featuring:

• AhBiyaahní Davis, Parking Enforcement Officer
• Marielisa Glass, Administrative Office Coordinator, Office of the VP, University Services
• Ken Paulaski, Housing Regional Engagement Specialist, Housing and Real Estate Services
• Praveen Rajasekaran, Assistant Director for Parking Operations, Transportation and Parking Services

 

 

Introduction Written by Marguerite Vera, Sr. Associate Director, Campus Support Services

The Venue Services Team welcomes you to join us for a look at what we do every day. In our busy lives it is nice to share and recognize all of the work that goes into supporting events, our colleagues and tenants of our buildings. Our team loves the work we do. We know that we could not do any of it without the support of our University Services colleagues, and we appreciate all you do to complement the work we do.

COVID Safety Notice:
All video participants followed University protocols and guidance that were in place at the time of filming. Staff removed face coverings only when speaking to the camera and when it was safe to do so. Those without speaking roles kept face coverings on and maintained a safe distance.

Video Credits (in order of appearance)

Marguerite Vera, Sr. Associate Director, Campus Support Services
Vincent Stanley, Venue Manager, Frist Campus Center/Andlinger Center for the Humanities
Rob Sumners, Venue Operations Assistant, Frist Campus Center
Dan Walker, Venue Operations Associate, Frist Campus Center
Ahren Henby, Venue Operations and Student Team Manager
Cheron Crowell, Venue Associate, Andlinger Center for the Humanities
Courtney Massari, Venue Manager, Julis Romo Rabinowitz and Louis A Simpson Buildings
Marcus Mullins, Venue Associate, Julis Romo Rabinowitz and Louis A Simpson Buildings
Risa Lemkin, Venue Manager, 701 Carnegie Center and 100 Overlook
Dallas Lacy, Venue Operations Assistant, 701 Carnegie Center and 100 Overlook
Jordan Foré, Venue Assistant, 701 Carnegie Center and 100 Overlook
Jimmy Corsini, Venue Associate, Helm Building

Written by Dorian Johnson, Director of Housing, Housing and Real Estate Services

The New College East (NCE) and New College West (NCW) construction is rapidly approaching the establishment of a new residential neighborhood just south of Poe Field. As the facades are finished, as the interior work, such as student rooms, dining facilities, college offices, and the various amenities, is completed, and as the final landscaping is installed next spring, we look forward to the beginning of a new chapter in the University’s residential college system in summer 2022. The addition of NCE and NCW and the decommissioning and demolition of First College will temporarily increase the residential college system to seven residential colleges. The residential college system will increase to eight colleges when Hobson College opens in fall 2026 on the current site of First College.

The addition of NCE and NCW, two state-of-the-art facilities, is exciting. They will advance many programmatic goals and important initiatives from the University’s strategic planning framework including greatly contributing to the University’s sustainability goals; supporting the expansion of the undergraduate student population; and transitioning the current residential college system to a four-year college system where students from all classes will have the opportunity to reside.

The current residential college system is comprised of six residential colleges – Butler, First, Forbes, Mathey, Rockefeller, and Whitman. The colleges create pairs of two- and four-year colleges: Butler-First, Forbes-Whitman, and Rockefeller-Mathey respectively. Every academic year, first-year students are randomly assigned to each of the six residential colleges, and each college houses all its sophomore classes. ODOC oversees this effort with the goal of creating first-year college cohorts that are as diverse as possible across a broad spectrum of factors. Once assigned to a college, the Director of Student Life for each college creates smaller communities and assigns first-years to advisee or “zee” groups, which are comprised of approximately 12-16 first-year students. Each “zee” group is assigned to a Residential College Advisor (RCA), a junior or senior who has been selected by the college staff to create community for these first-year groups. Finally, junior and seniors who are not RCAs and who desire to live in the residential colleges are limited to selecting rooms in one of the three four-year colleges during the annual room selection process.

Parallel to finishing the physical construction of NCE and NCW, Housing and Real Estate Services (HRES), the Office of the Dean of the College (ODOC) and Campus Life are engaged in construction of another kind – building the residential community of students who will reside in the new dorms.

Populating these two new colleges will include the current processes used to create these residential communities while others will be specific to NCE and NCW’s openings. The NCE and NCW four-year college communities will be created in the following ways:

• First-years (Class of 2026)
  The Class of 2026 will be randomly assigned to each of the seven residential colleges. This group will include the first of four first-year classes with 125 additional students.
  
  NCE and NCW will each receive their randomly-assigned cohorts as the other colleges currently do.

• Sophomores
  NCW will be populated by the sophomores who are currently reside in First College.
  
  NCE’s sophomore class will be created through the selection of 100 students from the current first-year class (Class of 2025) who currently reside in Butler, Forbes, and Rockefeller Colleges. This NCE sophomore-class-creation process will begin at the start of the spring semester with a “pre-qualification draw” where current first-years from the three eligible colleges will apply to be able to participate in the NCE room selection process.  A lottery system in which a random number is assigned to each student or group of students, up to the limit in their respective colleges, will determine the students who will be eligible to participate in the NCE room selection process later in spring 2022.  

• Juniors and Seniors
  During the spring 2022 room draw, juniors and seniors will be able to select rooms in any of the seven residential colleges. In order to attract juniors and seniors, certain room types that have traditionally been of interest – singles and suites where each occupant has their own sleeping space – have been created in NCE and NCW. 

In summary, the completion of the physical and community constructions of NCE and NCW is complex on many fronts and there is much work to be done in the coming months. HRES is confident that through our team’s collaborative work with campus partners that this new era in the residential life of the University will be successfully launched next year.

Introduction Written by Chef Dan Maher, Chef de Cuisine, Campus Dining

This summer, Campus Dining launched the Culinary Development Program. The program, divided into two parts, included culinary fundamentals as well as an exploration of cultural cuisines from around the world. After watching the video, try out one of the recipes (Beef Bulgogi)!

COVID Safety Notice:
All video participants followed University protocols and guidance that were in place at the time of filming. Staff removed face coverings only when speaking to the camera and when it was safe to do so. Those without speaking roles kept face coverings on and maintained a safe distance.

Video Credits:
(in order of appearance)

• Chef Dan Maher, Chef de Cuisine
• Ervin Soto, Cook, Whitman
• Byron Arriola, Cook, Graduate College
• Marvin Vasquez, Cook, Rockefeller/Mathey
• Andrew Immordino, Cook, Center for Jewish Life
• Edilma Gonzalez, Residential Food Service Worker, Graduate College
• Patrick Thompson, Cook, Frist Campus Center
• Yolette Barthelemy, Residential Food Service Worker, Graduate College
• Angel Labastida Villa, Catering Cook, Catering
• Esvin Paz Barrientos, Cook, Frist Campus Center
• Emily Capunpon, Cook, Butler/First
• Rashawn Williams, Cook, Butler/First
• Danielle Beavens, Garde Manger, Catering
• Tim Dewitt, Residential Food Service Worker, Butler/First
• Cristian Vasquez, Director of Retail and Catering Operations, Campus Dining

Photography by

• Amy G. Brown, Data Management Support III
• Renae Hill, Communications Specialist

 

Introduction Written by Marianna Bogucki, Conference and Event Manager, Conference and Event Services

Conference and Event Services is proud to introduce the Event Planning Toolkit. This virtual resource was created to help the entire Princeton University community plan consistently excellent events. The Toolkit is the product of a years worth of hard work across departments and we are thankful for the contributions of everyone involved.

COVID Safety Notice:
All video participants followed University protocols and guidance that were in place at the time of filming. Staff removed face coverings only when speaking to the camera and when it was safe to do so. Those without speaking roles kept face coverings on and maintained a safe distance.

Video Credits:

Script written by, developed by, and starring Marianna Bogucki, Conference and Event Manager, Conference and Event Services

Written by David Gluck, Assistant Director, Finance and Customer Service, Print and Mail Services

From July through September of this past year, Print and Mail Services received and processed a record of approximately 42,400 packages – a whopping 41% increase compared to the same period in 2019 which was the last time all students were on campus, with approximately 30,100 packages. And while package deliveries to campus typically spike during the beginning of the academic year, then level out, so far there are no signs of slowing down.  

According to the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index, the United States parcel volume reached 20 billion units, up from 15 billion units in 2019. This means around 640 parcels were shipped per second in 2020, compared to 466 in 2019. Between 2015 and 2020, US parcel volume doubled from 10 billion to 20 billion.

With these figures, it’s no surprise that package orders and deliveries on campus have steadily increased over the past several years. This increase in package deliveries on campus is not just a trend but appears to be the "new normal” and has greatly impacted and changed the scope and focus of our jobs in Print and Mail Services. 

Mail Services receives multiple deliveries sent from various shipping companies, such as FedEx and UPS as well as Amazon throughout the day. We also make two daily trips to the post office to pick up packages delivered via the United States Postal Service. Based on recent trends along with the addition of new Residential Colleges over the next several years, we anticipate future package growth to continue.

The package boom has greatly impacted how we do our jobs and how we will do them in the future, as package inbounding and delivery continue to take up a larger portion of our workload.

While package lockers are now common at other universities, we anticipated this trend in package growth and fortunately added our first package lockers for undergraduate students at Frist in 2018 and added others at the Graduate College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science over the past few years. Other than some oversized packages that require to be picked up at a package room window, most student packages are now delivered through the lockers.

These lockers have provided an enhanced user experience for students with increased flexibility and convenience of self-service along with a combination of modern software and hardware technologies to enable smooth package delivery. Students can easily retrieve their packages using a touchscreen located at the locker locations or through an app. On the backend, the package lockers have significantly boosted our efficiency and have been incredibly beneficial in allowing us to process incoming packages and reduce our package backlog. 

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How do package lockers work?