Talk:Princeton University eating clubs/Archive 1

Misc old threads
Is it true that Whig and Clio were in fact secret societies? I'm not sure that's true... -- Sirmob
 * Yes, it is indeed true, as far as I know. They were not secret in the sense that their existence was secret, but secret in the Masonic sense --- they had secret rituals and so forth. This persisted to the 20th century. I would refer you to Nurseries of Letters and Republicanism, a history of the societies published by the societies---the society used to have extracts from it online at whigclio.princeton.edu, but they've apparently suffered from "technical failures". jdb &#x274b; (talk) 22:55, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm reverting an earlier change in which reference to the coeducation of the eating clubs was removed. While younger Princeton alumni may not consider this point to be consequential, coeducation was a major struggle in the history of the eating clubs. Few young alumni may realize how hard it was, first, to get the eating clubs to admit any non-WASP students (back in the 1950s) and later after coeducation of the University in 1969 to get the eating clubs to accept women. The topics of overcoming racism, bigotry, sexism, and the everpresent problem of alcoholism in the eating clubs are all worthy topics for this article and need to be expanded on in the future. RCH, P '91. Rcharman 16:15, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Odd. I wonder why it was removed? Clearly, it's the most significant single event in the history of the club system. jdb &#x274b; (talk) 20:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm assuming it's a matter of either guilt or denial. Within one day of my reversion, the information had been vandalized again.  RCH, P '91. Rcharman 02:50, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

''Alternatively, there is the option of 'Third Floor Bicker,' a process by which a potential member can choose to perform personal favors for officers of the bicker club who traditionally live on the third floor of the club. Discretion is usually maintained.''--Can someone elaborate on this? It sounds like a pretty explosive allegation and is it appropriate for Wikipedia? This isn't the Enquirer.64.132.218.4 20:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * "Third-floor bicker" is campus slang. It would not be surprising if there were the occasional exchange of sexual favors for club membership, but any student participating in such an exchange would probably be rather reluctant to acknowledge it in public -- so there's little for WP to do but acknowledge it as slang. jdb &#x274b; (talk) 09:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Deletion
This page should be deleted. This topic doesn't deserve an encyclopedia article. I don't think the princeton eating club is famous all around the world. Sorry. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.36.153.101 (talk • contribs).
 * Actually, the novel The Rule of Four made some of the clubs quite famous. --Gulliveig 01:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Personal bias is not a valid reason for deletion, please see Wikipedia's Deletion policy. 129.128.198.223 23:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC) I don't think you can prove that whoever wrote that has any specific bias...although there are a lot of pages on Wikipedia for things that are far more obscure.

Images
I would be interested in photographs of some of the other clubs, i.e. the Ivy etc. - Would it be too many pictures in the end if all 10 clubs were included? --Gulliveig 01:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Notability of individual clubs
I question whether each of the clubs here is sufficiently notable for its own article, per WP:ORG. I suggest that we merge all information into this single "Eating clubs" article instead, with a separate section for each of the individual clubs. --Elonka 18:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:ORG is clearly met (see the section labeled Primary criterion). dcandeto (talk) 23:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Could you please provide some sources to verify that? --Elonka 00:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Search nytimes.com. Admittedly Tiger Inn, Ivy Club, Cottage Club are the easy ones, this article mentions Tower and Cap, though I suppose since they're mentioned as a group that doesn't count. However, that's the New York Times - I'm sure every club has at some point been the recipient of individual attention from The Daily Princetonian, which I believe counts as a secondary source - it is largely inhabited by Princeton students but is independent of both the University and the eating clubs. sirmob (talk) 05:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, since you note Terrace Club specifically, here. sirmob (talk) 05:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The Princeton website and student newspapers at Princeton are too close to the subject. And that NY Times ref is clearly a trivial mention.  Can you provide any sources that the club is known outside of the Princeton area? Has it been the subject of any scholarly papers or books?  --Elonka 05:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that the NYTimes mention is trivial, but the other examples are not. I don't know of any sources that establish that Terrace is written about outside of Jersey, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, and furthermore I don't see that as relevant to WP:ORG, unless you want to argue that two things are not "independent" if they happen to exist in the same town. I disagree that the Daily Princetonian is "too close" - what about the Princeton Alumni Weekly, a non-student-centric magazine, not directly affiliated with the university, that has national distribution? What about the Princeton Packet, a non-university-centric local paper for central Jersey? I don't have access to their archives but would be surprised if they hadn't covered most of the clubs in detail at some point. sirmob (talk) 07:41, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you have anything that doesn't have "Princeton" in the title? --Elonka 07:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's an arbitrary criteria! The Princeton Review isn't at all associated with the university... sirmob (talk) 13:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: I'm probably going to need to drop out of this conversation, I don't have that much time to devote to Wikipedia anymore. I think that it's clear that national secondary sources exist for certain clubs, such as Ivy, Tiger Inn, and Cottage, and there is probably coverage of all the other clubs in regional or local media, for instance when they've run into trouble with the law. I've definitely always thought that local sources count as secondary sources (the Princeton student and regional newspapers are not doing self-promotion of any sort when they cover the clubs).

However, the larger issue is whether the encyclopedia is better served by having separate articles or a combined article; I feel like an analogy can be drawn with TV shows: House (TV Series) is notable, and the eating clubs are notable. However, is the first season episode Babies & Bathwater really deserving of a Wikipedia article? I'm not sure; nor am I sure every single club needs its own page. I lean towards allowing the existance of both pages. sirmob (talk) 23:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's an article from New york times which talks about Terrace and other eating clubs as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/education/edlife/princeton.html?pagewanted=2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.173.41.241 (talk) 04:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Another voice: Please merge these into one article. It's Princeton cruft. We don't need articles about each of these individual eating houses, and we certainly don't need long alumni lists. We don't care, and they don't meet WP:ORG. --kingboyk (talk) 11:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Terrace Club
A merger template was added to this article on 11 Dec 2007 for merger with Terrace Club, but no arguement for the merger was stated on either talk page. The other Princeton eating clubs have their own articles. There has been no discussion on the merger. Unless someone objects, I'm going to remove the merger template. Fratprez (talk) 15:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a discussion above, but I think it's safe to say no consensus was reached sirmob (talk) 22:15, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No it's not. You're an alumni aren't you? --kingboyk (talk) 11:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My user page admits as much; yes, I am an alumni. No consensus was reached yet - there was one voice against (dcandeto), one voice for (Elonka), and one more-or-less "weak don't merge" (me). You've added another voice in the "merge" category; great, but add in Scharferimage working over at Princeton Charter Club, no, there is no consensus. Yet. sirmob (talk) 07:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Let me repeat that while I am not strongly opposed to merging, I'm going to be very interested in watching where the line gets drawn. I am strongly against merging Ivy Club. In my opinion, it's hard to argue against Ivy Club having a page - it's the exclusive subject of a bundle of New York Times articles, one of the most significant places in The Rule of Four, discussed in This Side of Paradise, the oldest existing eating club. Full disclosure: I never so much as set foot in Ivy Club when I attended Princeton. So, let's assume that argument holds. Out of 11 clubs, some partial fraction must necessarily be eliminated, and I can't fathom a principled way of doing so. sirmob (talk) 07:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Notable members, per Club entry
Where are the footnotes to support that, for example, H. Baker, Hill School graduate, was indeed a member of Ivy Club?SLY111 (talk) 01:49, 4 June 2010 (UTC)SLY111

Anti-Semitism
Why does this entry omit any mention of social discrimination by eating clubs against Jews? This is suspect; this must be corrected.SLY111 (talk) 15:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)SLY111

I agree that the present article is not balanced and fails WP:NPOV by omitting any mention of allegations of antisemitism in the 1950's. It also leaves out problems of overserving alcohol to minors at the clubs. A Wikipedia article should cover a subject completely (without unbalanced coverage) rather than being a promotional vehicle. Regarding allegations of historic antisemitism, see pages 124, 243, 304-309, 601 discussing the system in the 1950's and particularly the 1958 fiasco. See page 96. See page 41, which says "In fact, Princeton's committee on admissions relied on eating club prejudices to deter Jewish secondary school students from even applying to the college. See  page 21. See  page 136. Antisemitism and racism were aspects of the school, up through the 1950's not just the eating clubs. See, page xxvi, which says there was a Jewish quota for admissions through the class of 1952, and which says in the 1958 bicker the clubs gained national infamy: 15 of 23 sophomores who were denied bids from eating clubs were Jewish, and 5 of them were National Merit Scholars. One explanation was that it was discrimination not because they were Jews, but because they were bookish grinds lacking in social camaraderie. The present article also neglects the widespread news coverage the eating clubs gained in the 1980s and onward for undergrad minors being overserved alcohol, and of incidents of sexual assault related to excess alcohol consumption at the eating clubs: Spokesman-Review, 1987, AP, 1988, NY Times, 1988, NY Times, 1990, Harvard Crimson 1999 ("On weekends the clubs specialize in drinking; the university's drinking policy is considered to be very lenient."), Daily Princetonian 2003, Daily Princetonian 2004, Daily Princetonian 2006, Daily Princetonian 2006,(alcohol abuse and sexual assault), Daily Princetonian 2006 (alcohol poisoning, history of the culture of drinking, infamous incidents in the past, eating clubs as a "safe place" to get drunk.), [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/education/edlife/princeton.html?pagewanted=2 NY Times, 2007, good general article on the clubs. mentions 2 alcohol related sexual assaults at one club in 2006, making it go dry for a couple of months)], UPI, 2007, NJ.com 2007, AP, 2007. Star Ledger 2007, Daily Princetonian 2007, Daily Princetonian 2008, Daily Princetonian, 2009 (drunkenness and sexual assault), Daily Princetonian 2009 (big jump in post-bicker transport of underage drunks to health center), Times of Trenton 2010, Daily Princetonian 2011 (Eating club drinkers party to the wee hours of the morning, later than at other parties and clubs, with a toll on student productivity). The eating clubs' role as "drinking clubs" is also covered in various books :,. Edison (talk) 19:12, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Reasonable points, all.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:22, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A couple of sentences or a short paragraph could cover the alleged antisemitism which was notable in the 1950's. I do not suggest for a moment anything like a complete history of the drinking problems, but rather  a sentence or two about how the eating clubs at Princeton are a common venue for drinking in the absence of a row of campus bars, and how there have been repeated incidents since the 1980's of minors needing medical treatment for excess alcohol consumption after being served at eating clubs, the history of lax enforcement of drinking laws, and incidents of sexual assaults following excess drinking. Does this addition seem acceptable? Edison (talk) 22:11, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Eminently so.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:46, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I very much agree with Epeefleche. These clubs do have a major historical importance as being anti-semitic, which is one of the most important things about them. It should be covered here, and in the articles on the individual clubs. This isn't unique, but since Princeton is unique in that the clubs were for a long time not just the basic, but the only  upper-class eating and social facilities, this was a major contribution to, and reflection of, the notoriously anti-semitic nature of the university for over half a century, where I think it is fair to say it had the dubious distinction of being the most antisemitic  among the ivies. And, as far as I know, essentially all college clubs and fraternities are a major contribution to drinking problems at colleges; there are I think for some of these some major incidents, and they need to be covered. DGG ( talk ) 07:05, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Quad problem, Wilson vs Momo
This entry lacks information on the battle Wilson waged to create a quad at the college, and the oppostion he encountered from pro-eating club alums and undergraduates. SLY111 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.173.91.55 (talk) 13:35, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

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