THE SIGNET SOCIETY

Amid all the uproar over Harvard's links to exclusive all-male final clubs last year, one elite Harvard institution stood quietly by, unaffected by the campus hoopla. Everyday around noon its male and female members, like their male cousins in adjoining stately homes, took out their keys and entered the hidden side entrance--into the world of china and teeny tea cups, oriental carpeted libraries, faithful servants and ancestral portraiture.

The place is the Signet Literary Society--or Siggy as its members affectionately refer to it--and for the last 116 years in its quaint yellow cottage on Dunster Street has been a better gathering place for some of the Harvard intelligentsia, than Ticknor Lounge, and yes, even better than Adams House.

Go to the Signet at 46 Dunster Street on any weekday afternoon, peek in a window, and gaze at a couple dozen students, faculty members, and guests sitting at two long tables nibbling on chicken salad and sipping chablis from goblets.

Don't go in the main door; it's locked. But walk in the side door to see what the Signet looks like inside. Perhaps you should tell a member-friend of yours that you're coming or you'll be asked to leave. Members cherish the exclusive nature of their club.

Leave your coat in one of the two cloakrooms, one for men and one for women, take a powder in the spacious bathrooms, and then enter the main dining room. Listen to the an editor of the Advocate chatting with Professor Adam Ulam about Moslem migrations in the Soviet Union. Hear a campus actor talk about the upcoming commencement orations with Richard C. Marius, head of Expository Writing.

Move to the library, where members are reading literary criticism magazines or books from the collection of old volumes sitting on decaying book shelves. Test the grand piano in the corner. The walls are covered with pictures of past Signet gatherings, mostly at one of the two big dinners held for present and past members each year.

If you look carefully, you'll see that a fair number of well-known figures who graduated from Harvard also graduated from the Signet--like Norman K. Mailer '43, George A. Plimpton '48, T.S. Eliot '10, and John H. Updike '54, Caspar W. Weinberger '38. Teddy Roosevelt Class of 1880, and Harvard presidents Percival Lowell Class of 1876 and James B. Conant '14 were honorary members.

Social or Literary Club?

Today, most Signet members stake their claim to fame by belonging to another literary, artistic or dramatic organization, or knowing enough members to get elected. As a result, the distinction between membership in the Society and the nine all-male final clubs has become increasingly blurred, spurring efforts on the part of some members to increase the cultural activity of the Society while opening up the election process.

Memberships on various campus publications like the Advocate, and the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatics Club are held at a premium by the members, who hold elections four times a year to determine whether students "put up" by other members should be asked to join the Signet's ranks. For an initiation fee of about $100 and a monthly charge of $40, members are entitled to eight lunches and invitations to other less frequent Signet events, like Friday afternoon teas.

Thirty-five sophomores, juniors and seniors form the core of the society's membership, which first assembled in 1871 when several juniors became fed up with the final club scene. More than 300 faculty members, administrators, and teaching fellows are called associate members after being handpicked by student members.

The election process is largely ritualistic, from the secret ballot by which candidates are elected or rejected to the initiation ceremony in the darkened Signet library where each member-elect must read an original piece of writing before an invisible crowd of taunting members. At the end of the ceremony, a red rose is given to each new member to be saved for posterity and one day returned to the club with the member's first book or significant work. T.S. Eliot's initiation rose is on display in the library today.

There are now 2000 living members, including both undergraduate and associate members, says John R. Marquand, an assistant dean and an associate since 1964. "Once you're a member, you're a member for life," he says.

Many members journey to Cambridge twice a year to participate in the annual spring and Christmas dinners. The most recent dinner Saturday night featured chicken by the Faculty Club, poetry by Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory Seamus Heaney, and a speech by Helen H. Vendler, professor of English and American literature and language. The annual award for service to the arts was presented to Agnes Morgan, curator of the Fogg Museum for 50 years.

Faculty Contact

Frequent contact between students and faculty is what members find most attractive about the Signet. The club is one of the few undergraduate organizations on campus, aside from the Hasty Pudding and the Lampoon, where professors hobnob with students outside the classroom.

"It is a relaxed and civilized environment to conduct conversation with associate members," says member Richard M. Murphy '88. "Since joining, the faculty has become a much more human body [to me]."

"I probably wouldn't have had any contact with the faculty if not for the Signet," says the club's secretary, Michael W. Hirschorn '86, adding that there "are very few organizations and places on campus where you can discuss a whole range of topics."

Associate members agree, saying they, too, enjoy the contact and conversation with students that otherwise would not take place in undergraduate houses. "The Signet provides the most stimulating conversation available in the College, where both faculty members and students talk together on common ground," says Marquand, who lunches about two times each week at the Society. "It's rare that I don't find conversation there fun and enlightening," he says.

"It's a place to practice the dying art of conversation," says Professor John Brewer, chairman of the History and Literature Department. He says that while he goes to the Signet one or two times each week, he rarely journeys to dine at houses. "It's rather different from the house environment where you don't know people."

Mather House Master David Herlihy says he thinks the houses do not provide as much faculty-student contact as he would like. "It is difficult to bring members and students together," the Lea Professor of Medieval History says, adding that he has never heard of the Signet.

Faculty members who frequent the Signet for lunch and tea include Kenan Professor of History and Literature John L. Clive, Peabody Professor of Music Emeritus Elliot Forbes, Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature Mason Hammond, and Honorary Curator of the Farnsworth Room and Woodberry Poetry Room in Harvard College Library David T.W. McCord.

Getting In

Five years after the Civil War, the Signet's founders formed their club in the hopes that it would not succumb to the politics they perceived as dominating the other 11 final clubs.

To distinguish the Signet from other exclusive organizations, the founding members stated in the original charter that members would be chosen according to "merit and accomplishment." Today, those membership criteria are still present in the club's constitution mandating that members "shall be chosen with regard to their intellectual, literary and artistic ability and achievements."

Since the early 1970s, the Signet has admitted women, one of the club's features which members say distinguishes their Society from the all-male final clubs. Because of its coed status, the Signet was never asked to dissociate itself from the University when the final clubs severed their official links last year, according to Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III, who is also an associate member of the Society.

But the club is an officially sanctioned undergraduate organization. "We are tied to the University and subject to its rule," says treasurer Diane M. Cardwell '86, who adds that The Signet does not use the Centrex phone system, the University's steam heating, or alumni mailing lists.

The Hasty Pudding, similar to the Signet because it requires students to be "put up" before being considered for membership, is also coed and officially recognized by the College.

Although the Signet is coed, many members today agree that the fine line between this literary society and final clubs is no longer absolute. While the exclusive organization began as an alternative to the clubs, about 20 percent of today's membership have also joined final clubs, says Max Drake '87, a Signet member who says he also belongs to a final club.

In addition to "merit and accomplishment," members say that social criteria also play a factor in the election process. Undergraduates admit that who you know plays a critical role in determining whether you are first, put up for election, and then actually elected. "People are going to vote for people they know and like," says Cardwell, who was elected as a junior.

"Membership is definitely not purely based on merit. It's a social club," says Murphy, a North House resident and Pegasus on the Advocate. He says social elements make up "40 percent" of the election process."

"People know members and that helps very much in getting elected," says Ari Z. Posner '86, the society's vice-president and a History and Literature concentrator.

Elections are "weighted somewhat more to the social side because of the way the nomination process works," says Michael W. Hirschorn '86, adding that he would like to see the nomination process changed.

"It used to be a haven for artists and literary figures, but it became an alternative for dilettantes," says one person who was asked to join but declined the invitation, adding that "the best writers on campus are not members."

But associate members say that undergraduate members consider only the literary, artistic, and intellectual aspects of a potential member in deciding whether he should be elected. Writers involved seriously in campus publications, actors, artists, and musicians make up the bulk of the Signet's membership, says Marquand, adding, "The Signet is much less of a social club than The Crimson."

"The Signet has merit-based selection, not one based on distinction or wealth," says Epps, the Harvard administrator charged with overseeing official student organizations.

Students also say that the Signet's exclusive nature has pushed it closer into the realm of final clubs. "It's hard to defend the Signet against charges of elitism. We apply standards which are admittedly vague and which vary from election to election. Everyone who joins the Signet accepts this," Murphy says.

"In a limited sense, [the comparison to final clubs] is probably correct," says Hirschorn, adding that "the administering of the criteria for admission is far from perfect."

"I've been in both situations, and the atmospheres are different, the kinds of things you discuss are different," says Drake, adding that the cocktail hour given by the Signet for nominated students is completely different than the fall or spring punching seasons of final clubs.

But Cardwell says the society's mission is far different than the much-maligned finals clubs. "The Signet isn't exactly like a final club. It's not just a social organization. It is a social organization, but it is supposed to somehow further arts and letters also," she says.

Exporting Culture

While the society's original charter states that the aim of the Signet is "to stimulate and promote greater interest and proficiency in letters, the arts and scholarship," members say that their society does little as an organization to stimulate literary activities on campus.

"There is room for improvement for the Signet as a literary society," says Posner. The society is currently trying to raise $1 million, and the club's leaders say part of this money will help the society act more as a campus cultural center.

Some members are trying to open up the election process so that any undergraduate could try to become a member. "A big concern among members is how to make [the Signet] less elitist than it is now," says Cardwell, a Kirkland House resident.

"Ideally, people would be able to nominate themselves," says Hirschorn, adding that while the "large, large majority of people in the Signet deserve to be there," other students at Harvard who deserve to be elected are never nominated.

But Posner says that, although he favors the change, he does not think members would approve election reform. "They might think it would demean the standards by which they were elected.