Princeton University eating clubs
[4][5][6] The primary function of the eating clubs is to serve as dining halls for the majority of third- and fourth-year students.
[7] On most Thursday and Saturday nights, the Street is the primary social venue for Princeton students, and each club will have music and parties.
These events include: Lawnparties, when clubs hire bands to play outdoors on their lawns on the Sunday before the first full week of fall classes; 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.
Members of the two societies, which accounted for the majority of the student body, engaged in vigorous competition for recognition in sports as well as campus honors.
[10] During the early days of Princeton University, the Whig and Clio societies dominated the social life and activities of the student body.
The first eating clubs emerged under this context as small informal dining societies, in which Princeton students gathered to take meals at a common table and often disbanded when the founders graduated.
In 1843 Beta Theta Pi, a national fraternity at the time, founded a chapter on the Princeton campus, which was soon followed by nine more organizations.
A fire that damaged the University's refectory in 1856 caused a major rise in student membership in eating clubs.
The new clubs (along with other new extracurricular activities) gradually eroded the central role that debate societies Whig and Clio played in undergraduate student life.
The eating clubs and their members have figured prominently among Princeton alumni active in careers in literature and the performing arts.
Dial Lodge is now the Bendheim Center for Finance; Elm Club temporarily housed the Classics Department and European Cultural Studies Program and is the new home of the Carl A.
Cannon Club was briefly converted into Notestein Hall, an office for the University Writing Center, but has since been repurchased by alumni.
A major part of the controversy was the difference in cost between joining an eating club and buying a university dining plan.
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.
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 some bicker clubs by entering with a member, or through membership in the Inter-Club Council.
