Colonization
The eating club phoenix swells its ranks
and makes an impact on the Street.
By Robert A. Faber ’02
Ours is a school that prides itself on selectivity. Indeed, Princeton is annually among the most difficult schools to gain admittance to, and thoughts of expanding the enrollment have raised fears of diluting the quality of the student body. What happens, then, when these “chosen” Princetonians finally become fed up with their elitist image, wanting instead to do something to include instead of to exclude?
The movement to revitalize the Colonial Club materialized as a reaction to the exclusivity of perhaps Princeton’s most elitist institution, the eating club. Every year, sophomores fret over the decision of what club to join, whether to bicker or sign-in, and how this decision will affect their ever-important social status. This year, however, a group of sophomores decided that they would not allow the eating clubs to dictate to them what their social status would be, attempting to make the club instead of letting the club to make them.
What initially attracted the mass of sophomores to Colonial, ironically enough, was the club’s inability to attract anyone else. With the club’s membership sagging to near-fatal figures, many sophomores, feeling isolated by the size and established entities of the other clubs, saw the opportunity to have a direct impact on Colonial. Indeed, as new sophomore member Sarah Gee said, “It was obvious that there was a member deficit and that we could have a huge voice in the club. Even if we got only fifty people to join . . . we would still [almost] double the size of the club.” Thus, considerable interest materialized after the first set of talks in October between sophomore leaders of the movement and president of the Colonial graduate board, Lou Ross.
Acting out of a sense of desperation, Mr. Ross needed a large group of sophomores to join Colonial or the club would face extinction as an entity on the street. In perfect tandem, a group of sophomores, needing a club that they felt could actually be their own, went to Mr. Ross with fanciful promises of attracting at least 120 interested sophomores before the Thanksgiving holidays. Mr. Ross responded to this enthusiasm by insinuating that there would be an early sign-in process for the interested group of sophomores and that there would be a good chance that sophomores could begin eating at the club during the second semester. Their hopes buoyed by further interest in their club, Mr. Ross and the other members of the graduate board insisted that sophomores would hold several offices in the club during the next year, with the chance of living at Colonial as juniors.
Each group made promises that were impossible to keep, even if everything went according to plan. Most obviously, a group of 120 sophomores willing to sign-in before Thanksgiving was a near impossibility. Indeed, many sophomores do not even know what club they are going to join as they are walking out to the street for bicker, so for a solid, resolute group of 120 to make up their minds with bicker still three months away was virtually preposterous. On the other hand, Mr. Ross could not have reasonably predicted that Colonial would have the opportunity to change its selection process to the bicker method in the future to cater to the wishes of some of the interested sophomores. Current president of Colonial, Melissa Waage, said that Colonial has an agreement with the University wherein the club cannot change its type of selection process. The difficulty arises because the University owns the land where Colonial sits.
As the time neared to make a commitment to the club dragged through the Thanksgiving holidays and on into December, many sophomores, disillusioned by the lack of a definite future bicker process and the uncertainty of Mr. Ross’ promises, reneged on their verbal agreement to the leaders of the Colonial movement. Interest in signing-in early had waned so much by mid-December that the number of those who were actually willing to go through with it had shrunk from the magic number of 120 to a more reasonable 35 or 40. With interest even among some of the leaders of the movement at an all-time low, the only difference between Colonial and any other sign-in club appeared to be the promise of an early sign-in period some time in January before the Intersession break.
However, in early January, following the promise that they had made to Lou Ross in late October, thirty-five sophomores signed into Colonial early, committing themselves financially to the club which so desperately needed their membership. Seven more new members signed-in on the first real sign-in date after intercession, bringing the total number of sophomores to forty-two. This was clearly not the number of people that the graduate board had in mind when the movement first began, but with the attention that the movement had gained in the sophomore class through word-of-mouth and various articles in the Daily Princetonian, Colonial became a “cool” sign-in club and figured to get a large influx of people at the second sign-in date. Indeed, with the addition of fifty-three sophomores at the second sign-in date, Colonial became, in terms of sheer numbers, the most popular sign-in club on the street with a sophomore enrollment of ninety-five. The Prince was quick to label the Colonial movement a failure, but as Sarah Gee said, “no matter what The Prince says, the choice was the right one. We got almost a hundred members and we are going to have a say in how the club is run.”
The group that signed into Colonial did not have any well-defined stereotypes that many of the other clubs, even sign-in clubs such as Cloister and Terrace, do. Perhaps that is partly the reason for Colonial’s popularity among sophomores during the second round of sign-ins: the club has no distinct image right now, and it is up to the Colonial members of the class of 2002 to forge the image of the club in virtually any way that they want, as their membership is about one-and-a-half times as great as the sixty or so junior and senior members of Colonial. New member John Kaaiohelo agreed with this sentiment: “It [Colonial] just seemed like it was going to be a sophomore-dominated club … [and] more than anything, it did not have a stigma attached to it like a lot of the other clubs.”
In much the way that Lou Ross and the rest of the graduate board wanted, Colonial will remain a viable option on the street because of sophomore interest in having “their own” club. Surely a club identity will emerge and Colonial will assume a stereotype just like every other club that shares Prospect Avenue, but for now, Colonial remains the club, more so than any other, where the sophomore class will have the greatest say.
