Bee Club Allows Friends of Invitees to Punch Club

In a deviation from the norm across final clubs, the Bee Club is allowing friends of those selected to punch the all-female final club to also seek admission to the club.

An individual familiar with the Bee punch process said that the club’s invitations indicate that its punches—the undergraduates invited to seek membership in the Bee—are permitted to bring a friend to punch events.

Invitations were sent out last night.

Previously, only those directly invited could take part in the punch process, which in final clubs usually consists of dinners and various social engagements through which punched undergraduates meet club members, and members select which punches to admit into their club.

The Bee’s change in punch policy was made in order to address what the source, granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, characterized as imperfections of the punch process.

Under the prior system, since Bee members would hand-select individuals to punch for their club, they were limited to inviting only people they knew. Expanding the punch roster to include friends of those directly punched allows for more people—namely, those not directly connected to existing members—to be considered for the club.

Those who attend the punch events as a friend of an invited punch will be treated the same as the invited punch throughout the process, including in how the Bee selects the next class of members, according to the source. Only those organizing the punch will be able to distinguish between those who were invited by the club and those who were invited by a friend, the source said.

Undergraduate members of the Bee expressed near-unanimous approval of the change, the source added, refusing to discuss the opinions of the Bee’s graduate board, and without disclosing how many invitations were sent last night.

The Bee has not spoken to other final clubs about its new policy, the source said, though it hopes that other clubs consider adopting similar procedures in the future.

While a system that allows punches to invite friends to participate in the process is a rarity among the final clubs, the Bee is not the first social club to have made a move towards openness.

The Pleiades Society has used a system similar to the Bee's new procedure ever since its inception in 2002, according to Mary E. Miller '11, president of the all-female final club. The Seneca, an all-female social organization, has an application that any sophomore, junior, or senior woman can complete. And in February, the Hasty Pudding Club stopped requiring an invite for its first spring membership event.

The individual familiar with the Bee punch process said that the Hasty Pudding’s experience with an open punch motivated the Bee to consider these changes more seriously. While the practices the Bee has adopted are still more stringent than those of the Hasty Pudding and the Seneca, the individual stressed that this move represents an attempt by the Bee to promote inclusivity in final club culture.

—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: September 13, 2010

An earlier version of the Sept. 13 news article "Bee Club Allows Friends of Invitees to Punch Club" originally reported that the Bee was the first final club to consider admitting students it did not directly select. In fact, the Pleiades Society has used a policy similar to that of the Bee ever since the final club was created, according to Pleiades President Mary E. Miller '11.