Oxonian: For Princesses, Politicos, Perhaps Oxford Grads

It must be Harry Potter’s fault. The Oxonian Society’s mixers have always been open to the public, but attendance had been getting so out of hand lately that, after four years of relative laxness, the group’s organizers have resorted to charging non-members a $15 cover fee.The Oxonian Society is not to be confused with its frumpy stepsister, the Oxford Alumni Association of New York. While the OAANY is known for putting together earnest outings to see plays or taste Caribbean food in Harlem, the Oxonian Society’s primary focus is bringing in fancy speakers. Even though they don’t pay speakers’ fees or cover airfare, they’ve managed to host everybody from Jon Stewart and Wesley Clark to John Major and Malcolm Gladwell. Sharon Stone is due to address an audience of Oxonians in November.But the most important distinction between the two clubs is membership requirements. To join the OAANY, you have to have a degree from Oxford University. To join the Oxonian Society, you have to have graduated from, er, anywhere. The group won’t say what percentage of its members went to Oxford, but to go by the turnout at a recent mixer, the real Oxford graduates are few and far between.To be fair, the group doesn’t purport to be an alumni society. It claims to be concerned with bringing a taste of Oxford to the Hudson, and its Web site says: “Membership is open to all who wish to be actively engaged in the activities of the society.”The club was founded by Joseph Pascal of Long Island, who received his M.B.A. at Oxford; English-born Louise Bagshawe, who earned her undergraduate degree at Oxford and is a New York-based writer (her Web site says her latest book, “Sparkles,” is a “sweeping Kane and Abel-esque novel set in Paris, Chicago, London, L.A., and Communist-era Russia – there are even some scenes in Finland and Estonia!”), and fellow Oxford graduate Princess Badiya el Hassan of Jordan. The club is loosely modeled on the Oxford Union, a private debate club at Oxford University that is known for its theatrical stodginess and swarming with aspiring members of Parliament. Membership to the Oxonian Society costs $100, and a bit less if you’ve already ponied up $15 for the mixer.Mr. Pascal, who works as the club’s president, said it has more than 1,000 members, and of the 50 non-members who attended last week’s mixer, more than half had joined within the following two days. Mr. Pascal said he doesn’t see anything disingenuous about the club’s name. “If you’re a Dartmouth College grad you can join the Yale club,” he said. “You can join the Asia Society and you don’t have to be Asian.” Still, to argue that the club is not suffering a bit of an identity crisis wouldn’t be cricket. The Web site refers to its calendar as its “term card,” and employs English spelling (“We do like to retain our Oxford flavour; members of the Oxonian society will often find an emphasis on a large number of senior British speakers.”). An e-mail promoting an upcoming debate among journalists about their right to protect anonymous sources lists participants’ Oxford college affiliations along with their professional connections (Marc Boxer of the Charlie Rose Show was at St. Peter’s, Oxford, and Harvard; author Katherine Eban studied at St. John’s, Oxford, etc.).The society has no clubhouse; its staff of one full-time employee and a smattering of volunteers works out of an office on Chambers Street. Its monthly lectures are held at a handful of university clubs. “Our audience is so diverse if we had them all at one club, our members would be upset,” Mr. Pascal said.The mixers take place on neutral territory, at bars and clubs across Manhattan. Last week’s was held at the Gypsy Tea Lounge in the Flatiron district. By 7 p.m., the bar’s entrance was fortressed by an army of bouncers and a tangle of red velvet ropes. Most clubs don’t have to worry about crowds so early in the evening, but in this case several members of the Oxonian Society, including one poor woman whose leg was in a cast, were told by doormen that if they had not pre-registered, they had no chance of getting inside. Entree to the Augusta National Golf Club would probably have been easier to come by.Inside, a barmaid was hawking a Bud Light special, not exactly the first libation that comes to mind when you think of Oxford. The room’s decor was all plush browns, with toadstool-like ottomans scattered about the centerpiece: an oversize lamp with a fringed shade that must have been 50 feet in diameter and had the effect of making you feel like you were standing under an enormous mushroom. Apart from a white-haired couple seated in the back of the room and a few roguish gentlemen working their way through the crowd, everyone was around 30 and dressed in crisp office appropriate attire. The attendees seemed to be yakking away spiritedly. They may not have been discussing the health of the Tory Party or the merits of corgies, but they seemed to be having fun. Overheard snippets of conversation included: “I’m an Oxford alum wannabe.” “Do you think my boyfriend is going to notice I spilled my drink all over myself?”Nobody in the room seemed to hold an Oxford degree – the closest candidates were a man who had attended a teen summer program at Oxford, and a Polish importer who had studied at Cambridge’s business school. John Evans, who went to Stanford and works as an adviser to the American mission to the United Nations, and he kept being reminded of the events through the Stanford alumni association. “I’ve never been to Oxford,” he said, “and I don’t know if I will. When I go to London it’s to see friends, not really to take day-trips.”

Oxonian: For Princesses, Politicos, Perhaps Oxford Grads

Oxonian: For Princesses, Politicos, Perhaps Oxford Grads

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