In Friday's 'Prince,' Jeff Wolf '02 offers us a picture of club selection, modeled after room draw, which he calls "utopian." Such a system would treat all applicants equally and thus be "indisputably fair." This inference is unwarranted. By this point, members of the sophomore class have complex connections to the eating clubs; they have invested time and emotion in particular clubs, forming bonds which chance ignores. Do not suppose that sign-ins is a fair process simply because it is random.
Had the entire sophomore class tried to sign into Terrace, would drawing names from a hat have been the fairest way of selecting members? Would it perhaps be better to ask first, "Have you ever been to Terrace?" A random selection process cannot account for the actual fact that some members will add more to the life of their club than others will. It is unfair precisely because it treats unequal applicants equally.
Mr. Wolf envisions that under a better selection process exclusivity would "vanish from the heart of Princeton's social life." However, there is a broader exclusivity to the 'Street,' driven not by a dichotomy among the clubs, but by the nature of the clubs themselves. Of course, Mr. Wolf is more interested in "thinking out loud" than actually advocating anything, so I will join him in this endeavor. Rather than worrying over how clubs select members, I propose that we should be much more concerned about how the content and cost of membership causes some students to avoid the process altogether.
First, there seems to be consensus that the nightlife at the 'Street' has something to do with minorities shying away from eating clubs; Dean Hargadon can only do so much.
Second, with the cost of membership approaching $6000, many Princetonians will never have to fret over Bicker or sign-ins, because the clubs are an economic impossibility. I am not comfortable with a college social scene in which membership, regardless of selection, has a sticker price that excludes an unduly large number of students.
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Zeke DouglasRosenthal, Edward Yingling, and Wyatt BrowneGuests weigh in with their thoughts on free speech, institutional neutrality, and the role of the ‘Prince’ with respect to the University's statements on encampments.
Guests weigh in with their thoughts on free speech, institutional neutrality, and the role of the ‘Prince’ with respect to the University's statements on encampments.
