For several years in the early 1990s I used to maintain a recreation card at UCLA and work out there several times a week. Early one evening, as luck would have it, I walked by a booth where they were offering Life memberships in the Alumni Association at a 75% discount, or $250 at the time. I was already a Full member at $100/year, but my first reaction at the time was that by upgrading to Life, I would be spared the future bother of annual dues and library card renewals forevermore. $250 was a large enough amount that I had to think about it for a minute, but then I took the plunge. It turns out to have been a good deal, as I’m now entitled to deep discounts on a variety of services and products. Among other things, I am eligible to join their Faculty Center for a modest $20 per month. I still live close enough to campus that this could be a useful thing for me.
I see myself settling down in a lounge for a few hours in the afternoon, and working on my computer or what have you. A (usually) quiet place away from home in which to work would be an excellent thing. Until very recently I wasn’t able to access the Internet while on campus, and that was always a deal breaker. Now, though, the campus IT infrastructure includes a network of unsecured hotspots that can be used by visitors. In short, what’s not to like? On the other hand, I’ve only really been inside a couple of times–once to attend a department alumni event, and once for lunch with the professor I was serving as a TA. I don’t know what it’s like to be a member.
So these are my questions: Do you belong to a faculty club, and if so are you an actual faculty member or grad student, for those clubs that allow graduate students to join, or are you affiliated in some other way, such as your Alumni Association?
Do you get a lot of use out it, and do you find it conducive for getting some quiet work done? Or is it really more just like a private restaurant, with a constant buzz of the lunch rush? I’m only on campus about once a month as it is, but this could be a reason to spend more time there.
One thing I forgot to add is that the deal includes reciprocal privileges with numerous other faculty clubs, mostly in North America but also including a few in the UK, Continental Europe, and Australia. Many of these clubs offer overnight accommodations, and while I don’t travel much I’m quite a fan of universities generally, and if I’m in a new place I enjoy visiting them.
If I sign the dotted line I must be sure to drop in at The Boffins if I’m ever in Saskatoon.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by faculty club ‘membership’. I guess at the schools I’ve gone to/worked at that had something called a faculty club, it was (as in your experience) just a place administrators/people with more money than me would treat people to mediocre overpriced lunch with cloth napkins. I’ve never seen one that was like. . . what, an airline’s platinum club lounge? Maybe this “faculty center” is something different-- I will learn even more from this thread than you will.
I have never belonged to my faculty club. They are desperate for members and you can now join for $1 a month. In a different era, not only did most of the faculty eat lunch there (I was always a brown-bagger), but they went for a drink at the end of the day and often spent the entire evening there and didn’t go home till their kids were in bed. This entire way of life has disappeared. And it was probably mostly British influence anyway.
How’s the food? I am not a faculty club member, but my father, who has been a professor for over 50 years, has been a member of several. In my family, going to the faculty club for lunch has always been a treat reserved for special celebrations. I’ve always thought of the faculty club as a private, upscale restaurant. If the food is good, and you enjoy the atmosphere, I’d consider it. I also like the idea of those reciprocal privileges.
The faculty club at my University is EXPENSIVE - many hundreds of dollars a year, and that doesn’t even get you food, just the privilege of being ALLOWED to purchase food there.
Coupled with the fact that it is on the main campus, and I am on the medical campus several miles away, no way in hell would I join.
My department chair belongs, and through her we have departmental functions there. Every time i’ve eaten there its bad fried chicken. And I have to wear a necktie to get in.
Well as far as the food’s concerned, I did eat a meal on both occasions I was there, and it was decent if not terribly exciting. It certainly would do adequately as a place to have a meal before or after doing something else on campus such as attending a concert, but I wouldn’t call it a destination restaurant. And I’m sure that typical restaurant prices are charged for the food, for you wouldn’t expect otherwise at $20/month. Faculty and eligible employees, it turns out, pay considerably less than that. But $20 is nothing; I spend more than that at Starbucks where I try to study under the constant commotion of scraping chairs, shrieking kids, and the ever present whine of the blender.
At any rate, the food is of little importance because I’m more interested in a quiet place to work, away from home. I’m really too old to use the study lounges, even if they weren’t officially off limits, and I don’t care to occupy a seat in the library when they’re busy and a paying student might need it. By contrast, as a dues paying member of the FC, I would in effect have a physical base of operations on campus, and a place where I can do my work free of distractions–a place where I can actually sit down without being intimidated by signs warning that those without campus IDs may be arrested for trespassing. All that can be mine for $20 a month, or $200 a year–that is, assuming that this place is more than just a mediocre restaurant and the vestibule leading to it. I do wish I’d paid more attention to my surroundings when I was there.
As far as I recall, the dress code at UCLA’s club is California casual, which is an alternative way of saying “No shirt, no shoes, no service!”. Otherwise, as long as you’re wearing something dressier than workout clothes or a bathing suit, you’re in.
FC’s are private clubs operating somewhat along the same lines as private city clubs–the “Clubland” institutions of London, for instance. The core focus seems to be selling food and drink to the members, but I would also expect there to be some quiet lounges and corners where one could just settle down for a couple of hours with a book or a computer. At least I hope so, because that’s what I’m looking for. From looking at the links in the list of reciprocal clubs, the ones at the older unis seem to be carbon copies of upscale private city clubs; in addition to a dining room and bar there are also lounges bursting with cushy chairs. With a relatively new institution like UCLA I’m not sure, until I can get a better look.
Generally, the membership is limited to faculty (including librarians) and administrators, although some admit graduate students too. Either way, though, it’s optional and costs a little money, or in some cases a lot of money judging by mozchron’s example. You don’t belong automatically just by being eligible.
There was quite a kerfuffle at UCSD in 1979, when there was talk of converting a popular student hangout to a faculty club. The underground newspapers, bless their hearts, pounced on this hugely unpopular idea and the plan was nixed.
They are actively if ineffectually trying to recruit new (read: Young) faculty members, since the current membership is rapidly dying off - I think I was told the median member age was in the late 60’s.
Its a weird place, not one where I would be comfortable working. Very formal folk in butler garb whisking around. The employees are almost all african american but none of the membership are, it feels very “antebellum southern plantation” to me, if that makes sense - like stepping back in time, and not in a good way.
I’m pretty sure, based on some of your other posts, that you’re talking about my grad school (i don’t live in the city, or the state anymore).
If you are, i agree with you completely. I know quite a few people who actually refer to the club as The Plantation, and on the four or five occasions i’ve been there, i’ve never felt very comfortable.
I belong to my campus faculty club. It’s very reasonable ($21/month), they have good happy hour specials, and most importantly, they have a garage that I can access next to my office. The director of membership is particularly charming, which helps - she’ll take any interested faculty to the club and give a complimentary lunch.
The food is not the greatest, and it is kind of pricey. But we get a monthly 2-for-1 coupon for the lunch buffet, which makes it a deal. There are some ancient-looking dudes that show up there, but a good mix of folks from all over the campus community, including students. They offer a lot of special dinners, game watching parties, and wine tasting things as well, which I never do.
The other great thing is that there are tons of lounges and open spaces. Often, when I’m trying to avoid people or the feeling that I’m on campus, I’ll go over there and find a corner to work. Also good for grading papers.
I don’t see a career-related rationale for joining; it’s not like people are going to look to see if you’re a member on your CV at promotion & tenure. We actually have another campus club that is tied into the athletic department which has that club reciprocity thing, but it costs more. But for me, the parking, being able to take someone somewhere nice every now and then, and the happy hour/cool workspace thing makes it worthwhile for me. YMMV, of course.
Yours sounds great, in fact, exactly what I’d be looking for. As for looking good on a CV or resume, that’s not even an consideration in my case; I’d only be joining for the purpose of what the club has to offer me and not how impressive it might seem to anyone else. I wonder if any other clubs besides UCLA’s has extended eligibility to non-academic affiliates? My degree from there is a master’s, but I don’t think that’s a consideration. The only thing that matters is that once in 1992 I let the Alumni Association swipe my card for $250.
I imagine any kind of teacher, at whatever level, needs a refuge safe from the prying eyes of his or her intellectual charges. When I was a TA, I graded papers first giving them a quick run-through and sorting them into stacks, laid out in front of me on the floor, according to the likely grade to be given; then I’d revise and refine my evaluations, moving some of the papers from one stack to another until I was satisfied. You can’t do that in your office and have your students drop in unexpectedly. My system seemed to work; the professor agreed with my evaluations.
As an aside, the other thing that changed with my Life membership was that I no longer needed to renew my library card every year, as I’ve said. So the one I have now says:
RENEW
AFTER
LIFE
Were I a hellfire-and-brimstone believing Christian, I’d say this might give me a sort of Eternal Pardon.
This is sad. From what I’ve seen of it, UCLA’s club is egalitarian in the sense that everyone from the lowliest adjunct on up can easily afford the dues, and the membership, based on my brief experiences, seems to be as diverse as the eligibility pool. I’m sure a lot of faculty members at mozchron’s school could benefit from something like that, or like what Hippy Hollow belongs to, and they’re not getting it because the people who run that club are borderline insane.
Careful – it might just get you a membership to Hell’s Library from the Far Side cartoon, the one with millions of volumes of story problems
My university does not have a faculty club, not being a particularly posh sort of place. I suppose I’d consider joining one if it did exist and the fees were reasonable; it would be nice to have someplace to eat lunch on campus other than the student cafeteria.
I went and checked out the Faculty Center today, and it appears to be very much like Hippy Hollow’s. So I decided to give it a shot. I must say it felt good to have a place on campus to settle in for an hour without feeling like an interloper. It’s not that there aren’t coffeeshops and the like where I could do the same, but those are only a good option in the summer. When the academic year kicks in, those places tend to become very crowded. I imagine the FC will also become busier at that time, but today it was deserted.
I’m quite pleased about it; I don’t think I’ve ever belonged to a club that had its own premises before in my life.
I actually rather like story problems; for me it’d have to be something else. Apocalyptic science fiction, perhaps? But no, in Hell even that would be light, uplifting reading.
