List of Yale University Student Organizations - Other Notable Clubs

Other Notable Clubs

Private clubs at Yale exhibit a range of membership models: all-student, student-faculty, or student-faculty-alumni, and a gamut of topical interests or organizing missions. Some are almost as well known as famous secret societies and some share characteristics including selective membership, endowments, noteworthy buildings, characteristic traditions, or on-campus historical antecedents as 19th c. or 20th c. fraternal organizations. Clubs located within the campus area are woven into the fabric of Yale life, even though most do not have any formal affiliation with the University. Several were cited in the Official Preppy Handbook.

• The Yale Anti-Gravity Society is a fun loving group of people that practice juggling and related skills.
• The Elizabethan Club is a literary discussion club, with a reciprocal relationship with the Signet Society at Harvard. Researchers may request access through Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library to items in "The Lizzie's" private collection of Shakespeariana and other British historico-literary material. Reference: The Elizabethan Club of Yale University and Its Library, Stephen Parks; Introduction by Alan Bell, Yale University Press, 1986, ISBN 0-300-03669-8
• Mory's is a dining club for alumni, faculty and student members. Its carved paneling, silver cups, Yale memorabilia and atmosphere make it an echt-Yale venue for the Whiffenpoofs and other singing groups' performances.
• The Chai Society, founded in 1996, is a private dining and social club occupying a brownstone on the Yale campus, adjacent to several properties which it also owns, and into which it is gradually expanding. Founded on principles of Jewish leadership and communal identity at Yale and in the world at large, its membership is open to all students and faculty regardless of their ethnic or religious backgrounds. In 2006, the trustees of the Chai Society, Inc., the 501c3 non-profit which supports the activities of the Yale student club, legally changed its name to Eliezer, Inc.
• The Fence Club was the historical name for the Psi Upsilon fraternity at Yale. In 1934, Psi Upsilon, by then a venerable junior fraternity, renounced its national affiliation and became the Fence Club, in honor of the Yale Fence. It was a very prestigious house at Yale and many of its members went on to become members of Skull and Bones, including George H. W. Bush. However, in the mid-1970s, the Fence Club went defunct when the University required a mandatory meal plan for all students. Its reputation led to its demise being noted in the Official Preppy Handbook in 1980. During the 80s, the Fence Club was restarted as a coed organization, but collapsed again after only a few years. Then, from 2004–2007, the Psi Upsilon fraternity reestablished an all-male chapter on campus, with fewer than 25 members. In 2007, the chapter severed all ties to the Psi Upsilon fraternity after a dispute with the national organization, retaining only the name Psi U, and in 2008, Psi U admitted its first female "brothers"; in 2009, after threats of legal action from the national Psi Upsilon fraternity, Psi U reverted back to Fence Club. In addition to other leading U.S. government figures, former CIA Director Porter Goss and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte were members. The former clubhouse at 220 York St., designed by James Gamble Rogers is used by the University as classrooms. In 2009, Fence Club moved its clubhouse to 401 Crown St, and in 2010, moved again to a more permanent location, at 15 High St. After the second-semester tap, in January 2010, Fence Club was a co-ed organization with over 60 members, highlighting the changes that this iteration of the group has undergone over its short lifespan.
• The Yale Society for the Exploration of Campus Secrets (or YSECS) is a club devoted to uncovering and archiving the history of Yale's campus. The society is said to possess knowledge of the entirety of Yale's rooftops, tunnels, and hidden places. Unlike the senior societies, members are chosen through an application process. Their public motto is Omnia Arcana Illustrabuntur (OAI), or "all secret things will be revealed." They have described themselves as being the ones that remember Yale's forgotten past. All members are said to have a group-mandated mark somewhere on their bodies.
• The Rockingham Club (1981–1986) was founded by British-born Yale undergrad Lord Nicholas Hervey as a social club for Yale student descendants of royalty or aristocracy, a requirement later modified to allow membership by offspring of the "super-wealthy." The club survived only five years and the clubhouse (privately purchased by a small group of members including Hervey and Salem Chalabi) was an off-campus clapboard building housing a full length portrait of Lord Hervey, Lord Hervey himself (he took six years to graduate), as well as a ballroom and chandelier and held parties whose invitations were in demand by a certain demographic of Yalies and their guests (predominantly homosexuals, bisexuals, arts majors, and those aspiring to attend formal balls and/or socialize with by-gone title-heirs and the exceptionally wealthy).
• The Corsair Club, The Zodiac Club, The Kittens Club, and the Round Table. Dining clubs that appear to have existed at Yale in the 19th century. (See researcher's reference at http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/exlibris/2003/01/msg00017.html)
• Yale Mountaineering Club