No change to club member selection process this year

Charter Club and Ivy Club did not back the proposal, but the other eight clubs — four bicker clubs and four sign-in clubs — have expressed their support for the system, which would inform all students of their club placement at the same time.

Under the proposal, students who bicker would rank their top sign-in club choices, and those who bicker unsuccessfully would be placed in their highest-ranked sign-in club with available spaces. Students who rank sign-in clubs as their first choice would still be able to participate in sign-in week activities at those clubs, which would receive the names of students who ranked them first. The proposal comes from recommendations issued last May in a report by the Task Force on Relationships between the University and Eating Clubs, which Durkee chaired.

The only difference in the Bicker process would be the method by which those who bicker unsuccessfully learn of their rejection. While students would likely first learn that they were unsuccessful in a message that informs them of their sign-in club placement — a move Durkee said he hopes would ease the pain of not getting accepted — clubs would retain the right to communicate with hosed students.

While club representatives largely supported the plan, they said that they thought implementing it now — less than three weeks before the beginning of the selection process — would create too many complications.

“Whenever you have a new system, you never know what glitches will happen in the coding. There’s no testing of the system yet,” Cap & Gown Club president Rachel Blum ’11 said. “Our only worry was that something would happen where people would get the wrong information. Now that it’s deferred for a year, they’ll have time to test the system and make sure it’s user-friendly.”

“Bicker is kind of a one-shot deal, so if the computers go down or there are other unforeseen problems, the consequences would be unduly harsh or disruptive without much gain this year,” Ivy president John Zacharias ’11 said.

Cloister Inn president Jake Sally ’12 echoed other presidents’ sentiments, explaining that “while the new system has the potential to be very useful, it currently has not been tested enough to ensure a smooth Bicker process.”

The Street may be more comfortable with the proposal if it is implemented next year, Tiger Inn president Michael Portillo ’11 said.

“I would like to see it fully developed and extensively tested by the [Interclub Council] and sophomores to be sure that all of the bugs are completely worked out,” Portillo said. “I am confident that when the process is put in place next year, it will work flawlessly, and all the hard work put in by the University and students will pay off.”

Durkee offered a similar perspective, saying he would be more confident in the strength of the new system if given one more year to test it.

“When we do this, we really want to do it right,” Durkee said. “If we deferred a year, we could do it with all 10 clubs, and that would be much better.”

Durkee added that the lack of support from two clubs would have raised additional concerns, such as how to accommodate students interested in those two clubs under the new system. But Durkee expressed confidence that those two clubs would change their stance well before the beginning of next year’s selection process.

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Zacharias explained that in the future, “If there is a working system that does not compromise Ivy’s status as an independent club separate from the University,” the club would consider supporting it.

The proposed system “doesn’t change Ivy’s Bicker at all, but we just were reluctant to implement something that we hadn’t seen and that hadn’t gotten the approval of our graduate board and lawyers,” he added.

But outgoing Charter Club president Justin Knutson ’11 was less optimistic. “It would be unfair to say that we ‘anticipate’ changing stances on an issue as dynamic as the Street-wide selection protocol — though we, of all the clubs, have been the most active in effecting changes to the system so far,” he said in an e-mail, noting that the club hopes to “work with the University and the other clubs to design and redesign a system that accomodates all the parties involved.”

In September, Charter announced a new sign-in system in which sophomores interested in joining the club would gain points for attendance at social events and meals hosted by the club in order to advance their chances of gaining membership during the formal sign-in period.

Knutson explained that planning for Charter’s new system was an “extraordinary undertaking” that began last spring, before the task force released its report.

Despite lengthy discussions, Knutson said: “When the time came to make a decision, we were not prepared to press what could have been a detrimental change for us this year. In short, the diminished timescale, lack of consideration of the sign-in clubs, and the difficulty in reconciling our new system with the [task force] proposal led us to withdraw our support pending further revision.”

Yet Durkee said that one of the goals of the proposed system was to ensure long-term sustainability for the sign-in clubs, arguing that current demand for membership can only sustain about nine-and-a-half clubs. He dismissed criticism that the four-year residential college system was responsible for the lack of sufficient interest.

Because of the larger class sizes in recent years, the number of upperclassmen who joined residential colleges is less than the total increase in the number of upperclassmen, Durkee said. This means that the prospective number of club members has increased since the advent of four-year residential colleges, he added.

“In introducing the four-year colleges, we wanted to meet the need of students whose needs were not going to be met by the clubs, but we didn’t want to undermine the long-term sustainability of the clubs, and particularly the open clubs,” Durkee added.

If implemented properly, the new system could have lasting benefits, Blum said.

“It’s not a perfect system, but I couldn’t even tell you what a perfect system would be,” Blum noted. “The proposal is a change in a positive direction.”

But Knutson said: “The only practical benefit I see in the plan is a change in the architecture of the sign-ins/Bicker process that could open up the door to future alterations in individual club policies.”

“I know some people out there would love to see multi-club Bicker make a return, but right now, we’re just focused on doing what’s best for our own little club,” Knutson added.

The presidents of Colonial, Cottage, Quadrangle, Terrace and Tower clubs did not respond to requests for comment.