Crimson Key Society Votes To Drop All-College Dance

With only one dissenting vote, the Crimson Key Society voted last night to give up the All-College Formal for at least a year.

Disavowing any future financial connection with the dance or the All-College Weekend, the Key will now urge the seven House Committees to sponsor future weekends. If the House Committees assume responsibility for the Weekend, then the Crimson Key will volunteer to help the new sponsors in a coordinating role.

Actually, Key members were uncertain what their role in future weekends will be if there are any future all-College weekends. In his report, President William D. Coakley '55 recommended first that the Key abandon the Saturday night formal, and then, that the Key urge "the continuation of the All-College Weekend in a new form. What this form will be we are not yet sure," Coakley said.

Claim Unfavorable Publicity

Although the Key lost $600 on the dance, members charged that lack of cooperation and unfavorable publicity necessitated abandonment of the dance.

For the first time, two social club dances, the Lowell House Opera, two Wellesley proms, and an Outing Club dance all were scheduled in conflict with the dance. Many members claimed the CRIMSON tried to undermine the Weekend. "The CRIMSON worked against us where-ever it could with adverse publicity," Coakley charged.

One Key member summed up House committee opposition to the dance, saying, "the House Committees don't want an All-College weekend on a small organization level. As it is now, we are offering a planned weekend with no actual House committee participation." But the only Crimson Key member who voted against the proposal, Arthur G. Siler '56, opposed leaving the Weekend entirely in the hands of the House Committees. "If you get it down on a House level, then it is no longer an All-College weekend," Siler said.