PROSPECT: A STREET DIVIDED
A debate rages among the eating clubs, sparked by Cloister's early sign-in policy
BY DAVE ITZKOFF '98
Speaking the word "bicker" you'll find has a polarizing effect on Princeton students. The term, referring to the member-choosing process still practiced by five of the school's 12 upperclass eating clubs, is steeped in controversial premises of privilege and tradition--or, if nothing else, the sheer irony that selective social institutions exist at a university that already has a 13 percent acceptance rate.
Some 30 years ago, frustrated juniors and seniors devised the sign-in system as an alternative to bicker. On an appointed day (historically the first Thursday of second semester, capping a week of parties intended to entice new members), sophomores turn in preference forms listing their top choices from among the cooperating sign-in clubs. If a club has more open slots than prospectives, everyone gets in. If interest exceeds the available space, members are chosen by random lottery.
The new procedure offered some immediate advantages over bicker: sign-in week gave sophomores an opportunity to sample many different eating clubs before having to commit to a specific one. Allowing them to sign into clubs in groups assured sophomores the process wouldn't separate them from their friends. But perhaps the most important distinction from bicker was a philosophical one--by choosing to take part in the sign-in process, a club was essentially turning control of membership over from its present ranks to the hands of those interested in joining.
But as any Econ 101 student could have predicted, exposing "The Street" to the harsh realities of a market economy led to some wild fluctuations in the numbers of new members. Look no further than Quadrangle Club for proof. Quad went from over 100 sophomores joining in 1995, to a paltry 14 turning out in 1996--less than the number of sophomores wait-listed the previous year.
Is this consequence of the sign-ins process inherently bad? Don't sophomores have the right to shun clubs with lousy food, boring entertainment, or hostile members? Considering that the students who join clubs have to shell out close to $5,000 for one year's membership (or their parents do), aren't they entitled to shop around for the best deal Prospect Avenue can offer them?
All these were rhetorical questions, it seemed, until Cloister Inn signed in a grand total of three new members one cold February day in 1993. Faced with bankruptcy if turnout didn't increase, Cloister bucked the long-standing traditions in 1994 and moved its sign-in date from Thursday to the preceding Sunday. The theory was that the rest of sign-in week could be used to throw members-only parties to help foster club spirit. And it worked: just last spring, Cloister comfortably filled its empty slots, turning away more than a quarter of its prospective sophomores and maintaining a wait-list well into the following fall term.
Problem solved, right? Wrong. Despite its immense current popularity, Cloister has no intentions of returning to the regular sign-ins program this spring. And why would it want to? By scheduling its sign-in before any other club has begun its selection process, Cloister has transformed its membership positions into hot commodities. The premature appointment forces undecided students to draw their hands--if they don't join Cloister on that day, there are no other opportunities. A sophomore who doesn't get into Cloister still has the chance to bicker a selective club, and, failing that, can get into any of the remaining sign-in clubs with available spaces through a second-round lottery. But who's going to want to submit to the bicker process after having suffered the stigma of getting hosed from a sign-in club? As if the existing competition at Princeton weren't enough, the mere date that a club grants its membership has become a criterion of social status.
Enter the Inter-Club Council (ICC), the confederation of eating club presidents, which claims among its few responsibilities the regulation of sign-in week. Hoping to restore a level playing field to this year's sign-in participants--or just plain miffed that Cloister's success was siphoning members away from other clubs--the ICC spent most of September and October threatening Cloister to conform with tradition . . . or else. Cloister called the ICC's bluff, and in November the ICC responded with "sanctions" that revealed just how little authority the council actually possesses. It disqualified Cloister from participating in meal exchanges, forbidding members of Cloister from trading meals with their friends at other clubs. How this punishment was supposed to dissuade sophomores from signing into Cloister or compel the club to get back in line is anyone's guess. If anything, Cloister members wear their new-found isolation like a badge of honor.
And, as incomprehensible as this course of action seems, it is further confused by the ICC's own not-so-hidden agenda. On the table for some weeks now has been a proposal to move the remaining sign-in clubs to a program of "rolling sign-ins," which would run something like this. The old lottery system would be abandoned, and instead, clubs would permit sophomores to sign in at any point in the week (Sunday through Thursday). New membership spaces would be offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once a club fills up, that's it; either go on a waiting list or pick a different club and hope that it still has space left.
But if rolling sign-ins has one flaw (and that's like saying the Ford Pinto had only one flaw), it's that the scheme completely subverts the goals of the existing sign-in plan. Sophomores would no longer be able to sign into a club simply on the basis of that club's character. Under rolling sign-ins, they would all have to turn into stock analysts, trying to pick a club popular enough to have attracted enough members to keep the club in business, yet not so popular the club would turn them away because it's run out of room.
Woe to the sophomores who haven't made up their minds on the very first day--though the new system would keep many away from their first-choice clubs, it wouldn't completely exclude them from partaking in the eating-club experience. But who's going to want to join a club that final Thursday, when only a handful of people signed in the previous four days? Sure, the ICC's scheme would benefit clubs financially, but aren't the social consequences sufficiently grim to make it worth reconsidering? Isn't Princeton's social scene backwards and antiquated enough?
On Thursday, November 14, Quadrangle Club officially extended a big middle finger to the ICC, announcing that Quad would resume meal exchanges with Cloister Inn. Who knows what Quad is hoping to accomplish with this rebellion--it only reminds us that the once-unified front maintained by the eating clubs will soon be a memory. While the inter-club squabbling continues unabated, the question of what's in the best interests of current and future sophomore classes fell by the wayside long ago. Like so many other controversies on the Princeton campus, this one is teeming with hypocrisy on all sides.
Dave Itzkoff is a satisfied member of Campus Club.
SCENES OF CHARTER DAY
A dazzling celebration slows time as Princeton reflects on its history
BY JULIE RAWE '97
By the time you read this, Charter Weekend will be ancient history, and PAW's "Happy 250th!" issue will be safely ensconced beside your commode. But the ubiquitous bicenquinquagenary (BCQ) logo will remain, its clock stuck at 2:50. Call it "convocation-lag," or the Doppler effect, but time seemed to slow down as Princeton paused to reflect on a quarter-millennium of history and to speculate on what the next 250 years might bring. The anniversary celebration was three years in the planning, and like the summer Olympic games and the presidential elections, this much-anticipated Charter Day milestone ended in mild disappointment and relief.
As picket fences and garish beer jackets sprang up all over campus, Charter Weekend initially looked like Reunions, out of season and inexplicably out of beer. Shuffling through fallen leaves, searching for the best possible view, row after row of students, alumni, and children fanned out from Nassau Hall. The convocation ceremony centered on this building, which (according to a thumbnail history in The Sentinel) was almost given a less stately appellation, Belcher Hall. Old Nassau wore the pomp and circumstance with its customary elegance. An enormous tapestry bearing Princeton's shield hung from the balcony, bathing President Shapiro in the ivory sheen of its fabric.
Hal was literally enthroned center stage, flanked by faculty members, trustees, and distinguished visitors. Most were clad in dark gowns, brightened by colorful sashes and betasselled caps, but one undecorated young man stood out amidst this variegated crowd: Mike Fischer '97, president of the undergraduate student government. His plain, black cassock as yet unmarked by achievement, the bareheaded Fischer spoke of the new service projects spawned by the 250th anniversary and conveyed a sense of impending achievement and the future of "Princeton in the Nation's Service."
The presidents of Harvard and Yale quipped Big Three jokes with surprising levity. Princeton poets gave voice to individual and collective experience. Music swelled, building plans were announced, and plaques were unveiled-all of this a prelude to keynote speaker Toni Morrison. Audience expectations were impossibly high by the time the renowned humanities professor and Nobel laureate rose to speak. Radiating wisdom and light, Morrison's proleptic prose-poetry fell short of the total enlightenment we sought.
Singer Sheryl Crow filled the unfortunate slot between the convocation and the fireworks finale. As she sang her big hit, "All I Wanna Do is Have Some Fun," I kept thinking, "All I wanna do is hear some good music." Wasn't her boyfriend, Eric Clapton, supposed to be somewhere on campus? Why not put him on stage? And what happened to the other, less age-specific contenders, like Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers? This MTV maven was more than a one-hit wonder, she was at least a two-hit wonder. Once the listless crowd-which consisted almost exclusively of undergrads-heard those two songs, they took off for dinner.
A more eclectic musical selection accompanied Garden State Fireworks's epic display: Tschaikowsky's stirring "1812 Overture," the Princeton Tigerlilies' rendition of "Going Back to Nassau Hall," Barbra Streisand's cosmic "Somewhere Out There," and Kool and the Gang's "Celebrate." Necks craned, people danced beneath dazzling skies, the air thickened with smoke, and thrill gave way to pride. This over-the-top finale brought Charter Day to an end and with it, the fleeting union of tradition and timelessness.
Although the cupola of the Nassau Hall ice sculpture on Cannon Green had crumbled by late afternoon, the foundation lingered for days, its melting windows and doors slowly dissolving into a smooth, shapeless mound. The process underscored the importance of such gala celebrations in our struggle to reinscribe the details that time effaces. Nothing remains frozen in time . . . nothing, that is, except the stopped clocks on Princeton's BCQ logo.
Julie Rawe saw most of Charter Weekend first hand, but if she'd known it was going to be out on video, maybe she'd have stayed in the library. (Videocassettes of the Charter Day satellite broadcast are available from Princeton on Tape; call 609-258-5262.)