| Birthplace: | Harvard University |
| Affiliation: | Independent |
| Status: | Active |
| Type: | Final club |
| Scope: | Local |
| Chapters: | 1 |
| Free Label: | Former name |
| Free: | Sablière Society |
| Address: | 1130 Massachusetts Avenue |
| City: | Cambridge |
| State: | Massachusetts |
| Postal Code: | 02138 |
| Country: | United States |
The Sab Club is a gender neutral final club at Harvard University. It was founded in 2002 as a women's club and went coed in 2017.
The Sab Club was founded as the Sablière Society in 2002 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[1] [2] It founders were six juniors:Originally all-female, the society was founded to provide a space for social gatherings that were more inclusive space than the all-male clubs that dominated the campus at the time.[3] The society was a final club that focused more on parties and exclusivity, rather than community service and charitable activities associated with sororities.In 2015 and 2016, there was a push for final clubs and Greek letter organizations to become more diverse and coed, with the university threatening sanctions for members of single-sex clubs.[4] [5] At the time, the Sablière Society publically stated, "female clubs have tried to work with Harvard's administration to ensure that both men's and women's clubs transition safely and that women do not become collateral damage in the transition. Harvard has given us no indication it understands these concerns."[6]
The Sablière Society was the first of two final clubs at Harvard that decided to become gender neutral.[7] [8] Its first class of fourteen men joined the society in March 2017. As part of this change, the society adopted the name Sab Club and changed its colors, symbol, and logo.
The Sab Club's house is located at 1130 Massachusettes Avenue in Cambridge.
The Sablière Society was named for Madame Marguerite de la Sablière, a 17th-century woman whose house was a meeting place for intellectuals from Louis XIV's court. The society's symbol was the swan and its color was light blue. These were changed as part of the rebranding as the Sab Club in the spring of 2017.
Members are recruited during a highly selective process with Harvard's fifteen final clubs called "punching".[9] The Sab Club has around thirty active members at a time.