Princeton May Limit Club Parties

Representatives from Princeton undergraduate clubs will meet with university President Harold W. Dodds tomorrow to attempt to iron out the student-administration dispute that has kept the New Jersey campus in a state of near-revolt since Wednesday.

The trouble broke out when the Princeton Graduate Interclub Committee announced its intention Wednesday to limit club football weekends to two per season, neither of them on the Yale weekend.

During the course of an interview following the announcement, John A. Stewart III, chairman of the graduate committee, said that his group's action was the result of a request from the Dean's office. "The Dean came to us in late November to talk over the problem of curtailing football weekends," Stewart explained.

"He felt that the University had been a little too liberal in their policy," Stewart added. "Our committee met January 11 . . . and found measures of restraint to be necessary." No specific reasons for limiting club parties were mentioned, however.

A wave of indignation about the pending restriction of its social activities swiftly spread among the Princeton student body, and Wednesday night 2000 undergraduates massed to hear student speakers attack the administration's proposed two-party schedule.

The next day a six-man "Student Minute-man Committee" invited Dodds to clarify the administration's viewpoint on the issue. Dodds departed for a meeting in New York before answering the request but on his return announced his willingness to talk over the problem with the Undergraduate Interclub Council.

An official statement from the Princeton student council asked that "no uniform ban on parties over any weekend should be imposed. The council complained especially that it had not been consulted in the matter before a decision was made.

It was emphasized time and again in undergraduate statements that the handling of the problem by the administration constituted an affront to the maturity of the student body.

Representatives of the undergraduate clubs met with several deans Thursday to work out a substitute plan for club weekends which involved a more liberal allowance of weekends and plans for self-discipline among the clubs. One of the clauses in the alumni's plan that students objected to most loudly was the demand that parties on the Yale weekend be wholly eliminated.

A party weekend was defined by the "Daily Princetonian." Nassan's undergraduate newspaper, "to include a dance on Saturday. Whether the dormitories are to be open Friday and Saturday would be left to the discretion of the individual clubs."