When I was handed the list, it had a tinge of holiness to it — University holiness, if that exists. The names ranged from past and present University presidents to various professors with named professorships or deanships or both — the top scholars on campus.

Then I was told membership was controlled by how many people can fit into a house, and the only rule was there were no rules. I was intrigued. What was this seemingly elitist unknown group of faculty members, and why were they calling themselves the Scientific Club?

Students probably haven’t heard of it. Faculty members probably haven’t heard of it. Only those who are in the Scientific Club know about it. But it isn’t a secret society.

“It’s directed at being quiet, but not secretive. It’s not secretive at all,” Scientific Club member Charles Eisendrath, director of the Knight-Wallace fellows program at the University, said.

Once a month during the academic year, a group of about 15 faculty members in the Scientific Club meet for dinner. They discuss anything they want, and they learn from each other.

“It’s kind of like a salon in the tradition of 18th century French notion of getting people of intellectual curiosity together for a good meal, conversation and for entertainment,” Scientific Club member David Featherman, professor emeritus of sociology, said.

These 15 or so people are a part of the 42 current members of the Scientific Club — a group comprised of senior faculty from different walks of the University.

But how does a faculty member become a member of this group? Well, they won’t know until they’re in.

Joining the club

“You can’t just say you want to join. You have to be elected.”

“It’s an elected society,” Howard Markel, a history of medicine professor and club member, said.

At the end of each academic year, the members begin an election process to decide new members. During this process, a member must nominate someone before the club, followed by a discussion about the nominee.

“We take nominations every year, but some years we don’t necessarily act on them,” Markel said. “Or there may be a slow year and nobody nominates anybody, so it’s not every year a new member comes, but it is a good idea if you want to keep something going.”

Resumes are passed around and the club votes on whether or not the nominee is a good candidate. Once a person is selected and approved, two people who know that professor approach them and ask them to be a member.

Kenneth Warner, a professor of public health and former dean of the School of Public Health, went to ask a new member to join earlier this year.

“He did not know about the club, which I think is the norm,” Warner said. “I think most people probably don’t know about it, which is interesting because this thing … really has some history to it.”

Most of the members had never known about the club until they were asked to join.

“It used to meet in people’s home under the presumption that the nonmember’s spouse, usually a woman, would prepare the meal and then disappear while the members would hold fort,” Featherman said. “Forty is about what could be expected to fit in anybody’s home, but that would assume that everyone would show up.”

Participation has changed over time, but stays between 30 and 40.

Members do not have to be current professors though. The oldest member of the club, John Reed, is 94-years-young and an emeritus professor of law. Reed said overtime he’s experienced a variety of presentations that he has learned from.

“We’ve had quite a variety of presentations as you would suppose. We’ve got scientists and artists and historians,” Reed said. “Everything from methodology to substance.”

This year, Reed gave his first presentation to the club in 10 years.

“He gave one of the liveliest and sprightliest and most spirited presentations I had heard in a very long time, and I just loved it,” Eisendrath said. “It was about why there are so few trials. He’s a lawyer, and it was really interesting and everybody had the same reaction ‘Oh! Oh my god, I didn’t know that!’ ”

The new members are asked to join at the annual banquet, which takes the place of the last meeting of the year in May and is a longer, generally catered meeting. It is the only meeting that spouses of members are invited to attend.

Historically historical

The Scientific Club began in 1883 and was founded by former Physiology Prof. Henry Sewall and former Chemistry Prof. John Langley as a branching off from the defunct Ann Arbor Scientific Association. Sewall and Langley invited 12 other male University professors — all of whom were affiliated with different sciences — to join. They began to hold monthly meetings where there was a presentation and the men discussed anything they pleased over food and smoking.

The club had no rules and still holds true to that. There are no rituals, no ceremonies.