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BY MICHAEL PEÑA
The Faculty Club is a popular lunchtime destination. Over the past five years, the club has added perks, such as free breakfasts and complimentary pub grub
Monday through Friday.
Junior Songya Kesler was among a group of students who dined as a guest of Professor Martin Fischer at the club on Halloween.
At a university where the word "institution" is usually associated with research entities focused on sweeping global issues, to call the Stanford Faculty Club a campus institution might seem a bit overstated. But in its own way, the operation is exactly that.
The university has had a club for faculty and select staff since the 1920s. Originally located in the Arboretum, the club has been at its present site, on Lagunita Drive next to Tresidder Union, since 1964. The university completely subsidized the club until 1996, when a board of directors was formed to run it as a separate nonprofit on campus. Like the Stanford Bookstore and the Post Office, the club is an independent entity housed in a university-owned building.
In a broader sense, the club also could be considered unique in that it has expanded its programs and updated its facilities at a time when faculty clubs around the country are closing or scrambling to stay in business by opening their doors to the general public, said chemical engineering Professor Channing Robertson, president of the Stanford Faculty Club's board of directors.
"This is a part of the Stanford fabric that's available to a large number of folks," Robertson said. "I think it's one of these treasured traditions that people took for granted for a long time. Our intent is to preserve it and keep the tradition going."
But some tricky challenges exist. The directors would like the club to be open to as wide a base of Stanford community members as possible, while simultaneously maintaining a certain level of exclusivity. The club also must put on programs and special events that meet both contemporary and traditional tastes—as well as appeal to those who live in the immediate area and those who commute from farther away.
The effort to increase membership began about 10 years ago, when the decision was made to extend membership eligibility to all exempt university staff. Over the past five years, the club has added perks, such as free breakfasts and complimentary pub grub. And more recently, the board decided to cover the monthly membership dues of all assistant professors who apply—until they are tenured—with support from the Provost's Office.
"It's really just a place where faculty—and we also believe the staff—can come together and engage in either social events or work-related events," Robertson said. "So it's open to the community."
Currently, about 85 percent of Stanford's assistant professors and 55 percent of all tenured faculty belong to the club. But less than 10 percent of exempt staff are members. So last year, the club sent an e-mail to all eligible staff inviting them to join. In addition, Human Resources sends the e-mail addresses and interdepartmental mail codes for all new hires to the club's management every month. Also, free membership is listed as one of the benefits in material given to new assistant professors when they go through orientation.
The club's 14-member board, which includes faculty and senior staff from a cross-section of major departments and offices on campus, contracts with an outside firm—TDS Foods Inc.—to handle day-to-day management and business functions such as catering sales, cooking and food service. A regular membership is $240 a year, plus a one-time $15 initiation fee. Faculty emeriti members pay $120 annually. Members can come to the club for lunch, happy hour and free breakfast; rent space for special events; and book any of the club's seven hotel rooms—although they also can be used by any guest of the university.
Chuck Perry, the club's general manager, said he went around during the summer of 2005 and individually asked a large number of staff members what may be preventing them from joining. The most common response, Perry said, was that they do not live close to campus and must leave right after work. He added that only a few staffers thought the club was exclusively for faculty.
"Is it that they feel they won't use it enough, or that we don't have programs that relate to them?" Robertson said. "If you're an exempt staff member, you're welcome to join the club."
So while the solution to signing up more staff who live farther from campus may not be clear, the club has tried to influence factors that it can control—namely, special events and ongoing programs.
About five years ago, the club expanded happy hour—originally one day a week featuring free tacos—into a program that serves different complimentary eats Monday through Friday. Soon after, the free continental breakfast set out daily for guests of the club's hotel rooms was opened up to members as well. Perry said Wednesdays are especially popular because the club serves up a hot breakfast featuring eggs, bacon, sausage and sides.
"I come in early sometimes and have breakfast there," said Karen Corday, a senior auditor in the Internal Audit Department. Corday has been on staff for a little more than three years and just joined in October—mostly, she said, because the club is a less hectic place to have lunch and because the menu is superb.
"I would say it's the food and the atmosphere," said Corday, who lives in Pacifica. "I feel very welcome there."
The club also has five big-screen televisions, the largest one in the Red Lounge, where members can watch the Big Game against Cal and enjoy a buffet for $15. As for other member events, the ones revolving around wine are especially popular. Two happening this month are a $75 dinner featuring four courses and a different wine paired with each, and on Nov. 17, a fall wine tasting and sale, which costs $15 per person.
The club also hosts a variety of buffets and brunches throughout the year for major holidays and special occasions, such as Thanksgiving, Easter and Mother's Day. Admission is usually $30 per adult and $15 for children ages 6 to 10. Throughout the year, the club's lunch buffet is $12 per person.
But the bulk of the club's revenue—about 70 percent of the $4 million brought in annually—comes from catered functions, which are anything that isn't lunch or one of the special programs for all members. This can range from events sponsored by an organization on campus to private weddings or banquets, which must be for a member or sponsored by one. The Stanford Faculty Club is a member of the Association of College and University Clubs, so Stanford club members can take advantage of the membership privileges of any other club in the association.
Over the past five years, close to $1 million in club and university funds have been spent on building renovations, technology upgrades and a significant number of cosmetic projects. Because the 42-year-old building is owned by the university, Stanford generally pays for structural and utility work. Some of the recently completed upgrades include the installation of wireless routers throughout the club, new furniture and carpeting in the hotel rooms, kitchen remodeling, patio renovations and the reconfiguration of business space to allow a cozy library nook to reopen.
And how Stanford's faculty club can do all this while others around the country are going away speaks volumes for the facility's prospects in the years ahead, its operators say. According to Perry, the University of Tennessee has closed its faculty club after four decades because the building is needed for other uses. Meanwhile, the future of the club at the University of Southern California is in jeopardy because the private donor who funded it for many years recently died.
"You see that a lot across the United States, faculty clubs closing," said Perry, estimating the pace of closures at about 10 to 12 clubs per year. "They can't support themselves, or in the case of the University of Tennessee, they needed the building. There's no place for them to build on campus."