by Anonymous
Centre is home to nearly 100 publicly advertised clubs and organizations that can be easily joined by anyone on campus. However, unknown to most, there are many exclusive organizations that wouldn’t have a sign up sheet at a typical expo. What would it be like to be in one of Centre’s secret societies? I spoke anonymously with one such group to find out.
Centre is home to several underground organizations that operate in total silence and secrecy. Many students at Centre will go their entire college careers without ever knowing these groups exist due to how seriously the vows to secrecy are taken. This article is written on the condition that these students are only referred to by their chosen alias and aren’t asked any questions that are overly identifying about them or their group.
The members discussed in this article will all be referred to with agreed-upon names from French history. They say that these aliases are also what they are known by within their own group, and that real names are almost never spoken during meetings for privacy purposes. The club’s historian, known as Voltaire, tells me that these aliases are passed down by members upon their graduation with some dating all the way back to the founding of the club over 100 years ago. The name that a member receives from their elders are earned through certain rites of initiation that they were not willing to disclose.
This organization has lived a very long life on Centre’s campus. Voltaire tells me that there were fears that they would die out during the pandemic, but that they have regained members and are doing better than ever. The organization first started as a public club on Centre’s campus in 1913 until a series of campus rules forced them to go underground in the 1920s, where they have remained in secrecy for over 100 years.
Voltaire tells me they were initiated in the fall of their sophomore year – the time when all members are initiated – and they were the first female to ever be initiated into the organization. Voltaire says there is a lot of pressure in opening doors as not only the first female student in the club but also as the first to hold an executive position in the historic club.
The vice president, who identifies as Napoleon, is the second initiated female and agrees wholeheartedly with that notion. They say that there is a lot of stress on them to set a good precedent for women in the organization so that there will never again be a time when women can’t join. Napoleon says this organization has made them feel more connected to the roots of campus than anything else in their time here and hopes that other women will one day get the same experience.
Both tell me that their initiation process was intimidating, without too many details. They both were reluctant when they started to receive cryptic notes from the upperclassmen members under their doors, but as the amount they received increased in frequency, they knew they had to investigate. Neither seem disappointed in this decision.
The club’s president, known as Robespierre, says secrecy during recruitment is always the biggest stressor for the club, and that is why members are only approached after careful observation during their sophomore year. He says this is for the most part successful, and he hasn’t heard of any issues with this process in recent years because most people do want to join after learning more information. He says that all members understand that secrecy is essential to ensuring that they can protect the group’s core values and guarantee their existence in the years after they graduate. He says that camaraderie is not a worry in the group and that this helps to strengthen them more than anything. Most members leave their individual initiations very closely bonded with their peers despite the differences between them.
The organization has a wide variety of members that are active on various parts of campus. There are members that span over a dozen sports teams, various student government positions, many clubs, several majors, every fraternity on campus, and a newly growing sorority population as well. Robespierre tells me that this has allowed for a greater knowledge of the happenings of the college, as well as allowed them to influence the policies and popular discourse on campus in ways they feel would be beneficial to all.
The members of this secret society know they are far from the only organization of this nature on campus, and hope that this interview serves as a reminder of the work done behind the scenes to make the Centre College campus what it is. They want you to take time to acknowledge the rich history of Centre as you walk its paths.