Cannon Club to open in February 2012

After plans to reopen in the springs of 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 were all delayed due to reasons ranging from a failure to obtain building permits to the economic recession, Cannon Dial Elm Club looks set to open its doors to undergraduates in February 2012.

Officials said the club will select its members through a Bicker process that would take place next February for members of the Class of 2014. Because the club has no junior or senior membership, the graduate board plans to choose between 10 and 20 of this year’s freshmen to conduct Bicker for their own classmates.

“Cannon Dial Elm Club is going to be a beautiful, new club with a strong historical tradition, but it hasn’t been open with a membership,” graduate board secretary and former Dial Lodge member Mercedes Naficy-D’Angelo ’84 said. “It’s an opportunity for students who may not find what they’re looking for in the current clubs, or may have a desire to set their own impact on a club, to come in and to form a club that’s vibrant and meaningful and relevant to the University in a way that maybe the others aren’t.”

Two catered meals a week will be served to sophomores who join next spring, while the full kitchen and meal schedule will start in fall 2012. The club will still maintain a regular social schedule next spring, complete with parties, member events and houseparties. Graduate board chair Warren Crane ’62, who is a former officer of the club, said the club had reached an agreement with 10 to 12 current sophomores and juniors who will live in the building during the next academic year.

After this coming spring break, freshmen will receive an e-mail with details on Cannon Dial Elm Club as well as information on how to apply for membership. On the application, students will be asked to indicate if they are interested in serving on the club’s Bicker committee and their degree of enthusiasm for joining this committee. Based on these results, the members of the graduate board will interview and select the students to conduct Bicker. The Bicker committee would then determine the details and events of the Bicker process itself, submit its proposal to the graduate board and bicker fellow sophomores in February.

According to Crane, the club’s decision to select students through a Bicker process rather than open sign-ins benefits both itself and the Street as a whole.

“One factor was that the bicker clubs, historically, have demonstrated a much more stable financial situation over the years than sign-in clubs,” Crane said. “Secondly, we felt that, by being a bicker club, we would have the least negative effect on the sign-in clubs.”

Crane speculated that Cannon’s addition as a bicker club might slightly increase the number of students bickering all six selective clubs but would have little effect on first-round sign-in numbers, though he added that the decreased number of hosed students might reduce second-round numbers. He added that, if Cannon had reopened as a sign-in club, it would hurt the other open clubs in the first round.

However, University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69 — who chairs the Task Force on the Relationships between the University and the Eating Clubs — said he is worried that 11 clubs on the Street might be too many.

“Even if we were successful in increasing the numbers a bit, it is likely that one consequence of a new club opening is that one of the existing clubs won’t be sustainable,” he said. “I hope that’s not the case, but, if you look at the numbers, it’s hard to see how all the existing clubs can sustain themselves if the new club is successful. The clubs that are most vulnerable in terms of being able to sustain adequate membership are the open clubs.”

In contrast to the other five bicker clubs, Cannon Dial Elm will allow students to bicker in groups as well as individually. Students have the option of joining “ironbound” groups of between two and 11 students and bickering as a joint group.

“If all of the members of this ‘ironbound’ are offered admission to the club, they would presumably all join,” Crane said. “If one of the members of the group is not offered membership, then none of the members of the ironbound join the club.” Nevertheless, Crane said, students will still be free to accept an admissions offer even if a member of their group is turned down, and would be free to turn down the offer even if a member of their group accepts it.

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The opening is being coordinated by the joint graduate board of the three defunct clubs, which have not had an undergraduate membership for decades. According to Crane, the club has approval from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs as well as the necessary permits from Princeton Borough to begin construction.

The graduate board signed a contract with E. Allen Reeves, Inc., the same contracting company that constructed Cap & Gown Club’s new wing, on Feb. 15 and expects to break ground on renovations soon. The contract allows for 24 weeks of work, so, if all goes as planned, construction on Cannon will be complete by the beginning of the 2011-12 academic year. Crane attributed the board’s failure to open the club in spring 2011 to an inability to agree on a contract with the previous company but said he has more faith in Reeves, Inc., in part because of its demonstrated success on the Street.

“I have seen the Cap & Gown job and it’s very nice,” Crane said. “They have a great reputation for high-quality work.”

Crane said that, downstairs, the club will contain three bars on tap, one of which will be a derby bar with flat-screens on the sides like a classic sports bar; a walk-in freezer, which can hold up to 30 kegs; and a lengthened dance floor. On the ground floor, the dining room will be expanded to run the entire length of the club. The upper floors of the four-story club will contain a TV room with stadium-style seating and room for 30 on the sofas, a computer room with 12 machines and 10 single-occupancy rooms for officers.