“It would be a bit humorless of us to deny this group that’s been around for 200 years because we were shocked it turns out to be a social organization.”

Social club members guaranteed they would not discriminate on any of the bases prohibited by the College. Olshan said they copied and pasted the College’s definition of discrimination directly into the social club’s application for student group status.

“Although we’re not going to discriminate, we are being discriminating,” Olshan said. “Our first requirement is people who will be active members, who are positive about the Pudding.”

Prospective social club members will be selected after three cocktail party or luncheon events.

The club also plans to organize an annual charity event and publish a Pudding newsletter this semester.

But since since membership is not talent-based, the requirements are difficult to quantify, Olshan said.

“The key is someone who wants to make new friends and is open to people,” Olshan said.

“I’m going to want to sit across the lunch table from these people, share a drink with them at a party or sit next to them at a charity event,” she explained.

With its newly granted student group status, the social club will jockey for space in the renovated Pudding building and for College and Undergraduate Council funds.

“It’s an issue of the use of resources—whether a group whose only purpose is

to socialize effectively uses limited space,” said CCL member Jennifer S. Axsom ’04.

Olshan said she was not sure whether the social club would apply for College funds.

Lewis stated firmly at an Undergraduate Council meeting last night that the college will not reconsider its refusal to recognize single-sex social groups.

“Non-discrimination by gender is a principle that served the University well...and I am opposed to getting rid of it.”

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