College To Decide Status Of Pudding Club Today

The Committee on College Life will decide this morning whether the Hasty Pudding Social Club will be recognized as an official Harvard student group.

The social club’s decision to apply for official student group status comes after more than a year of discussion with the University, which bought the Hasty Pudding building from the group’s graduate board, the Institute of 1770, in the spring of 2000.

Student group status would allow the 206-year old social institution to continue to use the Hasty Pudding Building at 12 Holyoke St.

The College purchased the building from in 2000 and plans to renovate it beginning next year.

The Hasty Pudding Social Club plans to open the first round of its fall punch process to all undergraduates, club president Andrea L. Olshan ’02 said earlier this month.

Although Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth ’71 had previously planned to allow the group to poster for new punches before the committee’s meeting, he decided to wait for College sanction.

“We wanted to go through the official process,” Illingworth said last week.

“I’m not sure how it will go,” Illingworth added. “I’m definitely going to recommend that we try to find a way to keep the students in the building.”

The Committee on College Life is a body composed of University administrators, faculty and student representatives selected by the Undergraduate Council.

—Staff writer Daniela J. Lamas can be reached at lamas@fas.harvard.edu.