Princeton Committee Asks Coeducation And House System to Replace Clubs

A faculty committee at Princeton has urged the University to adopt coeducation and a quadrangle system similar to Harvard's Houses to replace its 100-year-old club system.

The committee, in a report completed yesterday, urged these as long-range goals. In the meantime, it states, Princeton should abolish Bicker -- the method of choosing club members -- and institute a less selective system.

A similar plan was outlined in the Report on Bicker and Proposals for Change, written this fall by ten top undergraduate officials. One of these undergraduates disclosed the details of the faculty report last night.

Clubs should accomodate the preference of sophomores as far as possible, the report states. After that, they should take applicants at random.

Drive For Change

The committee's recommendations are the first fruit of an unprecedented drive by the University to change the club system by itself, taking the problem out of undergraduate hands.

William D'O. Lippincott, Princeton's Dean of Students, announced the Administration's shift in policy in an official statement to the Board of Trustees last month:

"Whereas I have felt for a long time . . . that club reform must come from and be led by the undergraduates, I have now come to the view that ... the leadership must come from the University, including the Trustees, Faculty, and the Alumni," the statement said.

The Board of Trustees then adopted a resolution that commended the undergraduate Report on Bicker. The Trustees also set up a seven-man committee to consider seriously the changes outlined in that report, "especially to seek to aid in developing, if possible, more suitable ways for sophomores to gain club membership."

Just before the Trustees group was established, the Faculty Committee on Undergraduate Affairs appointed its own subcommittee to study changes in the clubs. It was that subcommittee, headed by Professor Michael Danielson, that urged coeducation and quadrangles.

The Trustees committee is moving far more slowly. It will hold its first-face-to-face session in two weeks. But presently, the Trustees are gathering responses to the Report on Bicker from throughout the University.

The Trustees will also seriously consider buying out the clubs as a way to get its changes implemented. Right now, the clubs are private and controlled completely by their members and alumni boards.