The Tiger Inn (or T.I. as it is colloquially known) is one of the eleven active eating clubs at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.[1] Tiger Inn was founded in 1890 and is one of the "Big Four" eating clubs at Princeton (the others are The Ivy Club, University Cottage Club, and Cap and Gown Club).[2] Tiger Inn is the third oldest Eating Club. Its clubhouse, located at 48 Prospect Avenue, near the Princeton University campus, is the oldest of the Eating Club houses, and is both architecturally distinct, built in the Tudor style, and historically notable. The clubhouse has been in continuous use since the facility first opened. It is a selective club, meaning membership is awarded after successful completion of a process called bicker. During bicker, prospective members interact with current members who then convene to vote on whether the prospective members should "receive a bid," or be invited to join, the club. Members frequently refer to the club as "The Glorious Tiger Inn" [3] and their unofficial motto is, "Always in the Right." [4]
The club is described by F. Scott Fitzgerald in This Side of Paradise (1920) as "broad-shouldered and athletic, vitalized by an honest elaboration of prep-school standards." In a 1927 essay on Princeton for the magazine College Humor, Fitzgerald elaborated: "Tiger Inn cultivates a bluff simplicity. Its membership is largely athletic and while it pretends to disdain social qualifications it has a sharp exclusiveness of its own."[5]
Debate over co-ed membership abounded until 1991, before which Tiger Inn had been all-male. The club became the last selective club to offer membership to women. Prior to the decision of the undergraduate club membership to open its membership to women, other selective Eating Clubs had gone to court to defend the practice of banning women from their ranks. For example, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in Frank v. Ivy Club that the failure to open membership to women violated the state's anti-discrimination statute.[6][7][8][9]
The Tiger Inn's distinctive clubhouse underwent renovations, improvements and enlargements culminating in the formal opening of its newest facilities on the weekend of November 11–13, 2011. Funded entirely by the club's alumni, the expanded facilities include a new dining hall and improvements to the spaces normally reserved for social events.
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