The Signet Society's Mission
Signet celebrates most of the arts, including music, the visual arts, and theater. Members are active in most undergraduate publications. Many undergraduate Signet members are in other Harvard College artistic and literary organizations, including the Harvard Advocate, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the Harvard Crimson, the Harvard Lampoon, the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra, and the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club. It admits both men and women without prejudice, unlike final clubs. Membership dues are required, but are pro-rated by Harvard's financial aid calculations, allowing all members of the College community to be considered for membership. Harvard faculty and administrators have been and are Signet officers, associates, and members.
The opening remarks of the Signet's minutes state: "On Tuesday evening, November 1, 1870, a meeting was held at 10 Grays Hall preliminary to the organization of a senior society, which was to afford to a select number a pleasant means of intercourse with each other, not to be expected from the illiberal policy of the only society of reputation existing." This "illiberal policy" refers to the displeasure with which the founders of the Signet greeted the established Final Clubs. These first members formed the society's admissions criteria to transcend the social politics that they perceived as dominating in the Final Club system.
To distinguish the Signet from other exclusive organizations, the founding members stated in the original charter that members would be chosen according to "merit and accomplishment." Today, those membership criteria are still present in the club's constitution mandating that members "shall be chosen with regard to their intellectual, literary and artistic ability and achievements." While these criteria are central to the put-up process (admissions procedure), personal character is also considered.
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