Considering the Past: Topics in M.C. History

"The Club" (also referred to the "Boarding Club" in the 1912 yearbook) was initiated when the college opened in 1899 in downtown Raleigh. This program gave some students a less expensive alternative to the traditional room and board arrangement and was designed as an opportunity for a higher education for less affluent students. That first year, tuition plus room and board in the Main building totaled $165.50 a semester, but this was beyond the means of many who wished to attend college. The young women who boarded in the East Building (formerly the “Adams Building,” an existing structure on the new campus) and in two additional cottages as part of “the Club,” paid a cheaper room fee ($10) and did their own cleaning and cooking, dividing the labor and the cost of food among them; a manager purchased the supplies. Many, who by necessity took this path, became leaders on campus, serving as Student Government presidents, Y.W.C.A presidents, class presidents, editors of the Twig and as May Queens. 

The Club arrangement lasted until 1931, surviving the move to the new campus. (Club students ate in the "basement" below the main dining room.) Ultimately, the classification of students with separate spaces and food arrangements was seen as divisive, inefficient and ultimately unnecessary, as students needing to earn money could do so with jobs on campus. Still, for 32 years, the Club rebutted the idea that a college education was only for rich girls.

College historian Mary Lynch Johnson wrote that when the Club program ended, there had been "widespread regret," especially by the alumnae who had taken advantage of the opportunity to fund their educations. Nellie Page Smith (Class of 1917) felt that students had received training in cooking and serving, learned  "habits of punctuality of and thoroughness," and enjoyed "good food, pleasant work and happy fellowship."