Forty-three years ago, around 100 Northwestern faculty and staff members gathered for lunch each day in NU’s Faculty Club, a dining, meeting and private event facility located at 1918 Sheridan Rd., according to the Faculty Club Constitution file in the University Archives.
McCormick Prof. Morris Fine served as treasurer of the Faculty Club and fondly remembered the lunches spent dining with colleagues from schools across the University.
“It was a great place,” Fine said. “I had lunch there every day with people from different departments. It was what you would expect from a university.”
As recently as winter 2008, a medical community faculty task force discussed the possibility of establishing a new version of the faculty club at NU. According to the document, the faculty club would aid in recruiting and retaining faculty.
With a new president, faculty have expressed optimism that the idea of a faculty club might become relevant again.
Fine and Communication Prof. Irving Rein both said they believe a faculty club could still be a useful tool for uniting the NU community.
“I don’t know if it is viable, but it was a nice thing and a valuable thing to have,” Rein said.
The Sheridan Road house was the home of the late Franklyn Bliss Snyder, NU’s 11th president, and underwent a $500,000 dollar renovation in the mid-1960s to be converted into a faculty club. The main level was used mostly for dining, while the upstairs contained a reading room, a billiards room and a faculty meeting space, according to archived information.
Faculty and staff members paid annual dues to be part of the club – the amount varied for tenured faculty versus staff – and paid additional funds for their meals at the club. They could also rent the space for special events.
Rein joined the NU faculty when the club was already in existence. He said he remembers the Sheridan Road club as a “hub of activity” for faculty from all over the University.
Fine said while the club was well-supported by faculty attendance, it had a difficult time “breaking even” financially, and caused the University to lose money over time.
When the Kellogg School of Management’s James L. Allen Center opened in 1979, University administrators expressed concern that faculty would “defect” from the club to dine in the new $3.1 million facility, according to the minutes of an April 1977 meeting between former NU President Robert H. Strotz, former Kellogg Dean Donald Jacobs and the directors of the Faculty Club. The attendees then said the loss of members and regular diners would make the club’s continued existence financially impossible.
The club was then moved from the free-standing Sheridan Road structure to two adjoining rooms in the Allen Center. After “a year or two” at the Allen Center, Fine said the club “fell apart by disuse.”
Though the NU Faculty Club is non-existent today, many other universities have active clubs they consider vital parts of their respective university communities.
Harvard University provides the building and pays for the utilities of its faculty club, said Heinrich Lutjens, the club’s general manager. Lutjens said the club offers an atmosphere of “dignity, elegance and charm” to the university’s community.
“When new faculty are hired, they bring them here because (the Harvard Faculty Club) shows what Harvard really is … a welcoming place,” he said.
Jeff White, Ohio State Faculty Club’s director, said the club plays an important role in unifying the large university as one community. The Ohio State Faculty Club runs as a separate corporation from the university, though, and like Harvard, the university provides the building and pays for the utilities.
