Pudding Social Club Applies for Group Status

The Hasty Pudding Social Club, a 206-year-old social institution for Harvard students, is close to an arrangement with Harvard College that would allow the social club to continue to use the historic 12 Holyoke St. building that has been its home through this year according to the College.

The social club’s continued residence in the building has been uncertain since the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) bought the building in the spring of 2000 from the Institute of 1770—an umbrella group for the four student organizations that have been based out of the building.

Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth ’71 said that the social club was in the process of applying for recognition from the College as an official student group and will file a formal application with the Committee on College Life (CCL) this fall. The social club must be recognized by the College as such an official group in order to continue to use the now University-owned property.

The social club is separate from the world-renowned Hasty Pudding Theatricals, which sponsors annual actor- and actress-of-the-year awards. This group is already a recognized student group and will continue to use space in the Holyoke St. building.

Illingworth said that the main obstacle to the social club’s transformation into a recognized student group is the club’s admissions process. Members of the club are currently selected by a “punch” process, like those in place at Harvard’s officially unrecognized final clubs.

In order to be recognized by the College, Illingworth said that the club would have to institute some kind of interest based “comp.”

“They are working on their entry admissions, on putting together a recruiting program that’s more open and transparent,” Illingworth said. “It would have to be a process that was interest based, more along the lines of a croquet club,” he said.

Illingworth said he expected that CCL would approve the social club’s final plan.

“Unlike the final clubs, the Pudding doesn’t have the ultimate barrier to admissions of not being co-ed,” Illingworth said. College policies forbid the official recognition of groups that discriminate on the basis of gender.

Andrea L. Olshan ’02, the social club’s incoming president, would not comment on the status of the club’s plans, except to say that officers were planning fall and spring punches, as well as a charity event.

Club officers have in the past said that if no agreement with the College could be arranged, they would try to relocate elsewhere.

Regardless of whether the social club stays, plans are taking shape for the multimillion-dollar renovation of the Pudding building. At the time of purchase, FAS officials said the building needed major renovations.

Current plans are to turn the building’s theater—which is home to the Theatricals—into a state-of-the-art performance space for undergraduates. The Theatricals will continue to perform their famous burlesque comedies and present their man and woman of the year awards on the Pudding stage.

Illingworth and Theatricals President George C. Padgett ’02, said that renovations were being planned to minimize disruption to shows’ annual late winter run.

Padgett said the construction will begin after the Theatricals finish their run in March.

No final blueprints have been drawn, but a committee composed of students, faculty, administrators and building experts has continued work this summer in hopes of presenting a final plan to Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles this fall.

Members of the committee visited theaters in New York Monday.

But some work will begin on the building before the major construction begins next spring. Padgett said this fall the college will start minor repairs—“fixing up some small things that have fallen by the wayside.”

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.