What do all of these things have in common?
They are all terrible, terrible ideas.
On Nov. 8, 2012, the Interclub Council (ICC) officially announced that Cap & Gown Club, Tiger Inn, Cottage Club, Cannon Dial Elm Club and Charter Club will introduce a “multi-club selection” option effective this coming winter. After peeling back the layers of this proposition, its ultimate effect is simple: The ICC is doubling the amount of bickerees while holding the number of spots in each club constant. In essence, this will dramatically increase how many students get hosed each bicker cycle. I don’t care if you call it “getting hosed” or “getting your third choice,” the reality is the same: Students will be denied membership into the selective clubs.
The alleged goals of the ICC are to increase accessibility to the Street while decreasing the stress of Bicker, yet this new proposition accomplishes neither of these objectives. Because prospective members must simultaneously bicker two clubs in the same timeframe as previous years, multi-club Bicker halves the amount of material each club will have to evaluate its new membership. This will inevitably reduce the exposure of bickerees to the membership of their potential clubs. Multi-club Bicker actually decreases the accessibility of the clubs by giving prospective members less time to bicker.
And as far as decreasing the stress of Bicker? Don’t make me laugh. By reducing the time bickerees have to interface with membership during Bicker, the ICC turns the process into even more of a crapshoot than it already is. “Hey sophomores, you had better be extra memorable in the five hours you have to bicker a club now that you’ll only have one night to do so.” Oh yeah, that will definitely decrease the stress of the process.
Not to mention those hosed from both of the clubs they bicker. That’s the ultimate way to relax: telling your mom you got rejected from not one, but two clubs.
The most interesting eventuality of the new system is its effect on the role of prior affiliations in the selection process. Given that Bicker is being truncated, club discussions will inevitably rely more on bickerees’ existing connections to the membership. These connections will overwhelmingly arise from organizations like theatre troupes, dance companies, athletic teams and — Shirley’s favorite — Greek life.
Yes, that’s right, multi-club Bicker will likely make it more difficult to get into a club without a prior affiliation. Nice work, ICC. That’s what I call accessibility.
And as bad as this change to Bicker is for prospective members, it’s going to be a major headache for the current membership. The current selection process already takes dozens of hours of time with the current number of bickerees. Doubling that number places an unnecessary burden on members, a burden manifested in worse outcomes for bickerees. If you think that the bicker process is bad right now, trust me: The bicker process on three or four hours of sleep is infinitely worse.
What is so disappointing about this development is that it comes primarily at the hands of elected club officers who, being members of clubs, should realize the absolute idiocy of this new policy. They should know better. I can only hope that the coming fiasco will encourage the ICC to reconsider their well-intentioned yet ill-executed overhaul.
Tower and Ivy have done well to stay out of this impending disaster. I was not privy to the discussions that went on surrounding the multi-club bicker decision, but I am certain that those two clubs shared, openly or privately, the same concerns I voice in this article.
Princeton committees and councils need to realize that the eating clubs hold fundamental values different from those of the University. Wasting everyone’s time and emotional energy with pointless systems like multi-club Bicker is in no one’s interest.
The multi-club bicker process is yet another example of the University’s failed effort to make Princeton into a Care Bear colony. The powers that be are trying to take a system that is inherently selective and turn it in to some kind of egalitarian powwow. The mystique and appeal of the eating clubs arises from a long-standing tradition of closed doors and shuttered windows, something that, for whatever reason, Princeton students buy into. Year after year, administrators try and fail to combat this reality. It appears that 2012-13 will be no different.
Nathan Mathabane is a geosciences major from Portland, Ore. He can be reached at nmathaba@princeton.edu.
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