Eating clubs (Princeton University)
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The majority of upperclassmen at Princeton University take their meals in one of ten eating clubs, which are private organizations resembling both dining halls and social houses.
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[edit] Current Status
While nearly three-quarters of upperclassmen (third- and fourth-year students) at Princeton take their meals at the eating clubs, the clubs are private institutions and are not affiliated with Princeton University. Each club occupies a large mansion on Prospect Avenue, one of the main roads that runs through the Princeton campus, with the exception of Terrace Club, which is located just around the corner on Washington Road. This area is known to students colloquially as "The Street."
Currently, Princeton undergraduates have their choice of ten eating clubs. Five clubs - University Cottage Club, Cap and Gown Club, The Ivy Club, Tiger Inn ("TI"), and Princeton Tower Club - are selective, choosing their members through a process called "bicker." Five clubs - Cloister Inn, Princeton Charter Club, Colonial Club, Quadrangle Club, and Terrace Club - are non-selective. These clubs' members are chosen through a lottery process called "sign-in."
[edit] Social Functions of the Eating Clubs
The primary function of the eating clubs is to serve as dining halls for the majority of third- and fourth-year students. Unlike fraternities and sororities, to which the clubs are sometimes compared, all of the clubs admit both male and female members, and members (with the exception of some of the undergraduate officers) do not live in the mansion.
The eating clubs also provide many services for their members, however. Each club, in general, has a living room, library, computer cluster, billiard room, and tap room. Members frequently use club facilities for studying and socializing. Each club also has a large lawn, either in front of or behind the mansion, and on days with nice weather, one will often see Princeton students playing various sports on club lawns.
On most Thursday and Saturday nights, the Street is the primary social venue for Princeton students, and each club will have music and/or various themed parties which are generally open to all University students, not just members. Friday nights are much more low-key at Princeton, and clubs that are open are usually open only to members. Each club also has periodic semiformal events and formal dinners/dances.
Several events are held annually at every club. These events include: Lawnparties, when clubs hire bands to play outdoors on their lawns on the Sunday before fall classes begin; Winter Formals, which take place on the last Saturday before winter break; Initiations, where new sophomore recruits are introduced to club life (usually in early February); and Houseparties, a three-day festival at the end of spring term during which each club has a Friday night formal, a Saturday night semiformal, a champagne brunch on Sunday morning, and another round of Lawnparties on Sunday afternoon. Notable bands that have played at Lawnparties in recent years include Lifehouse, Maroon 5, the Gin Blossoms, and Jurassic 5.
[edit] History
Fraternities and secret societies were banned from Princeton from the middle of the nineteenth century until the 1980's, with the exception of the university's political, literary, and debating societies, the American Whig Society ("Whig") and the Cliosophic Society ("Clio"), which had been founded at Princeton before the American Revolution.
Eating clubs arose from dining societies, in which Princeton students gathered to take meals at a common table. These groups, often whimsically named, rarely lasted longer than a few years, disappearing when their founders graduated.
Towards the end of the 19th century the eating clubs began to recruit new members as old ones left and also began to lease or buy permanent facilities. Ivy Club was the first of the permanent eating clubs. It was followed shortly after by University Cottage Club. The new clubs (along with other new extracurricular activities) gradually eroded the central role that Whig and Clio played in undergraduate student life. The decline in popularity and energy of the societies led to their merger into the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, which still exists today.
A total of 20 eating clubs have existed since Ivy Club opened in 1879, though never more than 18 at any one time. At various points, many of the eating clubs fell on hard times and closed their doors or merged with others. The now-defunct eating clubs include Campus Club, Cannon Club, Elm Club, Key and Seal Club, Dial Lodge, Arch Club, Gateway Club, Court Club, Arbor Inn, and Prospect Club. Dial, Elm, and Cannon Clubs merged to form DEC Club, which operated from 1990 to 1998. The most recent club to close was Campus Club, which shut down in 2005. In late 2006, alumni of Cannon, Dial and Elm announced that they plan to reopen Cannon in February 2008.[1]
Defunct eating clubs have often been purchased by the University for use as academic buildings. Dial Lodge is now the Bendheim Center for Finance; Elm Club temporarily housed the Classics Department and European Cultural Studies Program. Cannon Club was briefly converted into Notestein Hall, an office for the University Writing Center, but has since been repurchased by alumni. The donation of Campus Club to the University for use as a space for social events will likely be completed soon.
In 1979, undergraduate Sally Frank filed suit against then all-male clubs Ivy Club, Cottage Club, and Tiger Inn for gender discrimination. While Cottage chose to coeducate during the intervening years, Ivy Club and Tiger Inn both became co-ed organizations in 1991 as a result of the lawsuit, 22 years after Princeton first admitted female students.
The eating clubs have attracted significant controversy, being viewed as elitist institutions. A major part of the controversy was the difference in cost between joining an eating club and buying a university dining plan. By 2006, the difference was over $2,000 for most clubs, and this difference was not covered by university financial aid. In November, 2006, Princeton administrators announced that they would increase upperclass financial aid packages by $2,000, in order to cover the difference in costs.[2]
[edit] Joining Clubs
[edit] Bicker
The five selective eating clubs pick new members in a process called "bicker."
In its current incarnation, bicker begins each spring semester during the week following intersession break, when interested sophomores come to the club they would like to join. The bicker process varies widely by club, ranging from staid interviews conducted by club members to raucous games designed to foster competition among potential inductees. Following two or three evenings of bicker activities, the club membership selects new members in closed sessions, the conduct of which varies from club to club. The clubs initiate their new members the following weekend.
Additionally, some bicker clubs conduct a smaller "Fall Bicker" for third and fourth year students.
Bicker clubs hold parties with restricted admission more frequently than their sign-in counterparts. Such events often require that non-members present a pass, a colored card bearing the club's insignia, in order to enter. Non-members may also gain entry to parties at bicker clubs by entering with a member, or through membership in the Inter-Club Council.
[edit] Sign-ins
The five non-selective eating clubs pick new members in a process called "sign-ins."
Students rank the five sign-in clubs, or wait-lists for those clubs, in their order of preference. If more students choose a club as their first choice than that club is able to accept as members, a random lottery is used to determine which students are accepted. The remaining students are then placed into their second choice club or wait list, provided it has not filled, in which case they would be placed into their third choice, and so on.
Students who choose to bicker and are not admitted to a club via sign-in are immediately placed into a second-round sign-in where they will be placed into their top choice of club that has not filled. While not every student will get into their first choice of club, either through sign-in or bicker, every student seeking membership has been placed into one of the clubs, though sometimes after a significant waiting period.
[edit] Alternatives
For upperclassmen who choose not to join the eating clubs, there are several alternative social/eating options. These include:
- University dining facilities, usually by drawing back into an underclass residential college. Residential Advisors in the colleges can be eating club members, but are required by the University to take some of their meals in their college.
- The Center for Jewish Life, a Kosher dining hall.
- Independent life. Students who cook for themselves are referred to as "independents." While kitchens are located in many dormitories on campus, the most favorable option of independents are the Spelman Halls. These dorms are composed exclusively of four-person suites with private baths and kitchens.
- Student Co-ops
- The Two Dickinson Street Co-op, a 40-member vegetarian co-op located immediately off campus in a university-owned house.
- The Brown Co-op, a non-vegetarian co-op located in Brown Hall, an on-campus dormitory building.
Fraternities and sororities are a supplemental social option to the eating clubs, but their organizations are not recognized by the University. Most fraternity/sorority members also join eating clubs, as they do not have their own facilities.
[edit] External links
- [1], Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library page on the clubs. Provides a history and list of materials in the library.
- [2], the University's list of links to the eating clubs' websites
- A Princeton Companion page on the clubs.
[edit] References
- ^ The Daily Princetonian - November 21, 2006. The Daily Princetonian (November 2006). Retrieved on 2006-12-21.
- ^ The Daily Princetonian - November 29, 2006. The Daily Princetonian (November 2006). Retrieved on 2006-12-11.
