In February 2005, University administrators told Jamal Motlagh '06, then president of the Interclub Council, that during the summer, Nassau Hall and the eating clubs would work together to prepare for the four-year residential colleges. They would forge contracts, create task forces and ultimately address the question of split meal plans between the colleges and the clubs.
But one-and-a-half years later — with the four-year colleges slated to open next fall — there has been little visible progress. A task force has come and gone, but there are still no contracts, and failed efforts to hammer out a deal have left Motlagh, who has since graduated, frustrated.
"It's unprofessional of them," he said of the University and the clubs' delay in reaching a formal agreement. "This is something that really needed to be done way in advance." He compared the situation to seeing a "train crash coming," with everyone else taking the attitude of " 'we'll deal with it when it comes.' It's just poor planning."
Motlagh's voice is just one in a small group of former club officials who criticize the University for its planning of the four-year residential colleges. The officers allege that Nassau Hall has dragged its feet on producing a formal proposal for how the eating clubs will figure into the new four-year system, largely, they say, because of administrators' mistrust and misunderstanding of the Bicker process.
"The crux of this discussion is [President Tilghman's] hatred — I use this word carefully, but I use it — of the Bicker system," said J.W. Victor '05, who also served as president of the ICC. "She feels that it discriminates based on race, on socioeconomics, and [that it] puts women in uncomfortable situations to be pressured sexually."
Current situation
Motlagh and Victor, while expressing criticism of Nassau Hall's treatment of the clubs, do agree that shared meal plans and the possibility of increases in financial aid would be positive for students.
The new system would be "opening [the clubs] up to the students ... [by making] it a lot easier on their pockets and their meal plans," Motlagh said.
But so far, Terrace Club is the only club that has announced its shared meal plan. The club has agreed to hold a lottery after sign-in and room draw next spring. Under that program, however, only three students — out of the club's hundred-plus members — would be allowed to split their meals between club and college, graduate board chair David Willard '60 said earlier this month.
Officials from Quadrangle Club, Colonial Club and Cloister Inn have all said in recent weeks that they are confident they will reach an arrangement by winter break. Cap and Gown's graduate board is meeting in two weeks to discuss a definitive plan.
Mark Burstein, the University executive vice president and the official leading up Nassau Hall's effort to negotiate with the clubs, had originally planned to disclose details of the new meal plans in November, said Tracy Solomon '05, a former Colonial Club president who served on the student task force discussing the four-year colleges. But those plans have yet to materialize.
"My conversations with the eating clubs have been very productive," Burstein told The Daily Princetonian earlier this month, saying that he had been in discussions with clubs since April and was confident he would produce a final agreement between Nassau Hall and the clubs by mid-December.
Burstein then added that he is "continuing to discuss the details of these potential arrangements with each club individually," but he declined to comment at the meeting on the nature of discussions with specific clubs and whether all the clubs would agree to a shared meal plan.
Cap graduate board president Bill McCarter '71 said earlier this month that while there have been discussions in the past, the first time the University laid out a proposal regarding a shared meal plan was during the club's October board meeting. Cloister Inn graduate board president Mike Jackman '92 said he has met with Burstein three times over the past year.
Other club graduate board presidents did not respond to requests seeking comment for this article.
When asked why he thinks the University has waited until now to iron out details, Motlagh suggested that "it has to do with them not knowing what they want," and that he believes "there is definitely conflict and not just one voice within the [University administration]."
The problem of Bicker
Though Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel has repeatedly said that the four-year residential colleges are not part of a larger plan to weed out the clubs, Victor said that a fraction of the administration "would like the residential colleges to replace the clubs." He added, however, that "it is not true of the majority, including President Tilghman," saying that he believes "many would change their minds with a better understanding of the clubs."
Victor sees the residential colleges as part of a larger University agenda "to present a Princeton that is no longer connected to the stereotype of being necessarily white and affluent. As the Bicker system does promote a certain kind of elitism, perhaps [President Tilghman] views the bicker clubs as a pillar of the negative stereotype she is battling," he said.
"But elitism is not always bad," he added. "Princeton is the most elite university in America, and that goes hand-in-hand with being the best. Maybe it's no coincidence the bicker clubs are often the most popular clubs."
Tilghman said in an email that she regretted Victor's characterization of her feelings as "hatred" for the Bicker process. But, she added, "I believe that it is in the best interests of the university — and most importantly its students — if we could evolve a system for joining eating clubs (which I do believe play a positive role in the university's life) that is less anxiety-producing, painful and more inclusive of students from all backgrounds."
Solomon, the former Colonial president and task force member, dismissed the suggestion that the administration is taking steps to dismantle the club system. "The University is not prepared to feed the entire student body at this point or even a majority of the upperclassmen, so it certainly is not looking to undermine the clubs," she said in an email. "There are only a certain number of openings in the four-year colleges."
But even if steps are not actively being taken to undercut the clubs, Motlagh and Victor said that the administration is seeking ways to create disincentives to continuing the Bicker process. "I've been told by higher members of the University that if all clubs were sign-in, that they would not have an issue with extending ... financial aid to clubs," Motlagh said. Victor agreed, saying he was told the same thing.
While University officials have said privately in the past that they would consider extending financial aid only to sign-in clubs — using the money as an incentive to switch from Bicker to sign-in — recently there have been indications that the strategy has been abandoned.
Marco Fossati-Bellani '07, the current ICC head and president of Colonial, said he is not sure if there will be a difference in the shared meal plan or financial aid options for sign-in clubs and those for bicker clubs. "I don't know what the letters [from the administration] to other clubs offering this formal relationship have looked like," he said.
If the University is interested in addressing perceived inequalities and other problems in the bicker clubs, Victor claims, the best way is to increase financial aid to all clubs. That way, students who now cannot afford bicker clubs would be able to join, eventually eroding class and racial differences.
But he hasn't always thought that way. When he was ICC president, Victor recalled, "One of the last things I tried to do, albeit unsuccessfully, was [reinstitute] 100-percent Bicker for all of the clubs. The club system is in need of reform, and one of the ways it would make sense and would benefit all the clubs would be to make all the clubs Bicker."
Though Victor is no longer sure of the 100-percent Bicker plan, he still thinks that "in a sense, you have a two-tiered club system, not of the people in the clubs but a perception of a sort of hierarchy." This, he said, is the real problem of the clubs, not the existence of Bicker itself.
Motlagh said that while some members of the administration understand and support the clubs, most are distrustful of "a process that gives the possibility of denying a kid who has his heart set on something."
But this is "a part of life," he said. "When you want something and you don't get it." He pointed to the University's admissions process as an example; Victor cited the Wilson School's admissions process as another. "There's a huge hypocrisy in this assault on Bicker, when the most popular major is, in effect, bicker," he said.
Victor explained that while he understands that the University "is in an uncomfortable situation" when parents of "hosed" students complain, he doesn't think the University should take this as a reason to work against the clubs.
"Getting hosed from a bicker club is painful, and feelings are hurt and friendships can be damaged. But people get cut all the time from things in college and in life. This isn't unique to bicker clubs," he said.
"Kids go home and cry after they don't make an a cappella group, a dance company or a sports team. In my sophomore year, I got hosed from Woody Woo, and it stung really badly. But that's life. Suck it up and deal with it."
A Street divided
Motlagh and Victor also expressed concern that the club system is not as strong as it could be because it lacks the ability to present a unified front on an issue that everyone agrees will shape the future of student life at Princeton.
While adversaries of the clubs target the system as a single institution, there is a lack of a unified response from the clubs themselves, Motlagh said. "There are so many people involved, so many groups at stake here," he said.
On the issue of shared meal plans, for example, Motlagh said he was upset that the graduate boards didn't take a more proactive approach to reaching a deal with the University.
"I was telling them that this is really important," he said, but "each time I was met with no response, or they would say, 'Let's wait for the University to come up with something.' "
Victor said that when he was president of the ICC, "the [Graduate Interclub Council] was fragmented. There was no unified front. Though, to some degree, this is intentional, since the clubs are ultimately in competition with each other."
Fossati-Bellani defended the system, saying that Colonial's graduate board and undergraduate officers meet every two months, so that everyone can make informed and appropriate decisions.
Victor, however, said that he found "many of the club [graduate board] chairs were busy with their professional lives, their personal lives and their involvement with their own clubs. They were often disconnected from what was really happening on the ICC level."
While he was glad that the students could run their own show, "the clubs need to develop the infrastructure to better communicate and work with the University."
"Because the undergraduate officer turnover is every year, this initiative has to be led by the members of the GICC," Victor said.
Despite all these problems, however, Fossati-Bellani said he believes that eating clubs are here to stay. "The University thinks that too," he said.
"The clubs have always been competing with each other, so in that respect they are constantly improving. The four-year college is a rather different option, and does not provide many of the amenities a small community like an eating club can."
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