The Committee on College Life (CCL) voted to grant the Hasty Pudding Social Club student group status early Friday morning, officially ending the social institution’s 206 years of independence from the College.

Members of the club, which was founded in 1795 as a 21-member secret society, plan to poster the Yard this week to advertise the fall punch.

The first round of the punch process, taking place next week, will be open to all undergraduates for the first time in the club’s history.

Associate Dean for Development Roger P. Cheever and Assistant Professor of Government J. Russell Muirhead will serve as the group’s faculty advisors.

“This is a breakthrough for Harvard. It’s the first purely social organization to be accepted as a student group,” said club President Andrea L. Olshan ’02.

The social club’s decision to apply for official student group status came 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 will allow the club to continue to use the Hasty Pudding building at 12 Holyoke St. even after renovations, slated to begin in the spring, convert the building into a state-of-the-art theater and space for student groups.

“This has become a necessity in the minds of club members and the board,” Olshan said. “We’re looking forward to a lot of compromise. It just isn’t our building any more.”

But the club’s focus will not change, Olshan noted.

“We want to be able to maintain the fun friendships intrinsic to the club at the same time as meeting new people,” she said.

The CCL, a body composed of University administrators, faculty and student representatives selected by the Undergraduate Council, voted unanimously to approve the social club as a student group. Their discussion addressed concerns about the criteria for club membership and the question of social clubs’ use of the College’s scarce student group space.

“They are primarily a social club,” Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth ’71 told CCL members. “We’ve worked with them to change their nature and become less exclusive.”

He compared the Pudding to the Signet, another college-approved, primarily social student group.

CCL members noted there are no rules that prohibit student groups with a purely social focus.

“It’s delicate, but it doesn’t look that complicated. We can only do our best to make sure the students are acting in good faith, and not discriminating,” said Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis `68.