page_title: Collegiate secret societies in North America
section_title: Princeton University
hierarchical_section_title: Collegiate secret societies in North America / Individual institutions / Princeton University
caption_attribution_description: English: Winter view of the Colonial Club in Princeton, NJ.
context_page_description: There are many collegiate secret societies in North America. They vary greatly in their levels of secrecy and independence from their universities. As the term is used in this article, a secret society is a collegiate society where significant effort is made to keep affairs, membership rolls, signs of recognition, initiation, or other aspects secret from the public.
  Some collegiate secret societies are referred to as 'class societies', which restrict membership to one class year. Most class societies are restricted to the senior class, and are therefore also called senior societies on many campuses.
context_section_description: Princeton's eating clubs are not fraternities, nor are they secret societies by any standard measure, but they are often seen as being tenuously analogous.
  Additionally, Princeton has a number of genuine secret societies; perhaps the best-known is a chapter of St. Anthony Hall, otherwise known as Delta Psi, a co-ed literary society. While membership in the Princeton chapter of Delta Psi is public, the society is known to maintain a secret president, referred to as Number One, whose identity is known only to members for the duration of his or her office. The 21 Club, an all-male drinking society, is also a notorious Princeton secret society. Princeton also has a long tradition of underground societies. While secret society membership is relatively public at some schools, Princeton's historical secret society rolls are very secretive because of Woodrow Wilson's ban on clandestine organizations and his threat to expel secret fraternity members from Princeton. One such society is Phi (pronounced fē), a society dating to 1929 when members of the Whig society splintered off after the merger of the Whig and Cliosophic debating societies. Phi's membership is secretive and difficult to discern, because no more than ten active "Phis" exist at one time: Phis usually receive offers at the end of their third year. As an adaptation to Princeton's stringent anti-society rules, each active class does not meet the preceding class that selected it until the First of June (after their first Reunions and before graduation). 1.6... is the Golden Ratio, hence the name Phi. Another society is the exclusively female Foxtail Society, founded in 1974 soon after Princeton began admitting women in 1969. The society was founded in response to the lack of eating clubs open to women. While admittance numbers have changed over the years, the Foxtail selects anywhere from 10 to 15 women to become members at the end of their junior year.
caption: Colonial Club
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