Frequent contact between students and faculty is what members find most attractive about the Signet. The club is one of the few undergraduate organizations on campus, aside from the Hasty Pudding and the Lampoon, where professors hobnob with students outside the classroom.

"It is a relaxed and civilized environment to conduct conversation with associate members," says member Richard M. Murphy '88. "Since joining, the faculty has become a much more human body [to me]."

"I probably wouldn't have had any contact with the faculty if not for the Signet," says the club's secretary, Michael W. Hirschorn '86, adding that there "are very few organizations and places on campus where you can discuss a whole range of topics."

Associate members agree, saying they, too, enjoy the contact and conversation with students that otherwise would not take place in undergraduate houses. "The Signet provides the most stimulating conversation available in the College, where both faculty members and students talk together on common ground," says Marquand, who lunches about two times each week at the Society. "It's rare that I don't find conversation there fun and enlightening," he says.

"It's a place to practice the dying art of conversation," says Professor John Brewer, chairman of the History and Literature Department. He says that while he goes to the Signet one or two times each week, he rarely journeys to dine at houses. "It's rather different from the house environment where you don't know people."

Mather House Master David Herlihy says he thinks the houses do not provide as much faculty-student contact as he would like. "It is difficult to bring members and students together," the Lea Professor of Medieval History says, adding that he has never heard of the Signet.

Faculty members who frequent the Signet for lunch and tea include Kenan Professor of History and Literature John L. Clive, Peabody Professor of Music Emeritus Elliot Forbes, Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature Mason Hammond, and Honorary Curator of the Farnsworth Room and Woodberry Poetry Room in Harvard College Library David T.W. McCord.

Getting In

Five years after the Civil War, the Signet's founders formed their club in the hopes that it would not succumb to the politics they perceived as dominating the other 11 final clubs.

To distinguish the Signet from other exclusive organizations, the founding members stated in the original charter that members would be chosen according to "merit and accomplishment." Today, those membership criteria are still present in the club's constitution mandating that members "shall be chosen with regard to their intellectual, literary and artistic ability and achievements."

Since the early 1970s, the Signet has admitted women, one of the club's features which members say distinguishes their Society from the all-male final clubs. Because of its coed status, the Signet was never asked to dissociate itself from the University when the final clubs severed their official links last year, according to Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III, who is also an associate member of the Society.

But the club is an officially sanctioned undergraduate organization. "We are tied to the University and subject to its rule," says treasurer Diane M. Cardwell '86, who adds that The Signet does not use the Centrex phone system, the University's steam heating, or alumni mailing lists.

The Hasty Pudding, similar to the Signet because it requires students to be "put up" before being considered for membership, is also coed and officially recognized by the College.

Although the Signet is coed, many members today agree that the fine line between this literary society and final clubs is no longer absolute. While the exclusive organization began as an alternative to the clubs, about 20 percent of today's membership have also joined final clubs, says Max Drake '87, a Signet member who says he also belongs to a final club.

In addition to "merit and accomplishment," members say that social criteria also play a factor in the election process. Undergraduates admit that who you know plays a critical role in determining whether you are first, put up for election, and then actually elected. "People are going to vote for people they know and like," says Cardwell, who was elected as a junior.