Word: finalities
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Members of the Porcellian club, the oldest and most prestigious of Harvard's eight all-male final clubs, are notoriously hush-hush about affairs in their clubhouse at 1324 Mass...
...some things never change. Harvard students today may not spend as much time debating the relative social merits of the A.D. and the Fly as they did in 1903. But if you substitute student groups--which to a large extent have replaced final clubs as the cornerstone of students' identity--for the clubs, Roosevelt would feel at home. Harvard students still love a good hierarchy. And, sadly, the institutionalized pecking order of many Harvard student groups is oftentimes just as silly as the turn-of-the-century final club scene seems...
...difference is ostensibly that the hierarchies in today's student groups, publications, government simulations, and such, unlike the elitist final club scene of Roosevelt's time, are based on merit. But anyone who has ever applied for a position and seen it go to a friend or roommate of the student making the decision knows this isn't true...
...instead of transparent favoritism and elitism, we have something worse: the illusion of meritocracy. We waste countless hours--and reams of paper--elaborately pretending we're not just as likely to pick our friends and cronies as were our Gilded Age predecessors. Ironically, the final clubs, no matter what you think of them, are now some of the most honest organizations on campus. Everyone knows getting in is about who you are, who you know and where you're from...
...final dinner Monday night, each participant talked about what they had gotten from the experience. Laura T. Lee '00, a participant, said the conference ended on a positive note...