Honorary Detling Membership

Annotated version: The following Notice first appeared on the door of room 280 1 sometime during the fall semester of 1991, and remained throughout the following year. It was created by Neil M. Sheldon2 -- with help from other residents, official and honorary -- after he noticed quite a large number of people practicing in house activities who did not live on Detling itself. Some of the first honorary Detlingites recognized by this list included: Chris (CFO) Wiemer, Sarah (Rah) Weiland , Jen Hayward and Karen Stein. Rah, Jen, and Karen all went on to later become official residents of Detling, while CFO qualified for Honorary Membership a record four years in a row. Whether anyone else has beaten this record is unknown.
REQUIREMENTS FOR HONORARY DETLING MEMBERSHIP STATUS:
In order to achieve Honorary Detling Membership, visitors to Detling3 must meet the following requirements:
  1. Non-Residence: Visitors must not already live on Detling.
  2. Time Spent: Visitors must spend at least 15 uninterrupted hours on the floor or at a major floor activity (i.e. Pop's runs4, capture the flag5, Focus Film6 Trip, etc.) with residents. This requirement can also be optionally met by sleeping overnight in an official resident's room.
  3. Den-time/Room-time: Visitors must spend enough time in the Den or in official residents' rooms that other official residents ask things like "You don't live on this floor?" or "Don't you have a home?"7 (This is estimated at about ten hours a week, but can be done with as little as three hours a week at prime Den-population hours8)
  4. Acceptance by other Residents: At least five official residents must accept the visitors as honorary members. In this same category, they must want to be honorary members of Detling, such an honor should never be forced (not that it needs to be)
  5. Movie Night: Visitors must attend 50% of all official meetings of the Detling Film Society9. (Detling Thursday Night at the Movies) Perhaps even suggesting at least one of the movies.
  6. Participation in Floor Activities: Visitors must participate regularly in major floor activities, besides movie night. This could include Outdoor Games, Den Olympics, San-Chin Ryu10, Pop's runs, dinner at Gordo's, Focus Film trips, etc. Optionally, this requirement can be met by having relatively private study sessions with official residents.
  7. Breadth Requirements, one of the following three: Foozball11: Visitors should play foozball at least 50% of the times that they are asked to and able to. Activity Participation: Visitors should participate regularly in minor floor activities. TV-Time: Visitors should have watched at least once a popular TV Show such as Star Trek, Quantum Leap, Northern Exposure, The Simpson's12, etc. with other official residents in the Den or the TV Lounge.
(Any and all of these preceding requirements may be waived if the visitor receives a vote of consent by the majority of active 13 Detling Residents, or if that visitor was a previous official or honorary resident.)
End Notes:

1. Room 280 was inhabited by Neil M. Sheldon and Jon Weyers from fall of 1991 through spring of 1992. Both were sophomores.

2. see Detling Den, MTV, and the integral of the log of cabin

3. A Dormitory floor on the second floor of Sellery Hall A-Tower, one of the Southeast Dorms at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Also see, Delting.

4. Pop's refers to Pop's Club, one of the Food Service locations in Gordon Commons on the Southeast side of the UW-Madison. Pop's Club was open from about 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., serving dinner during dinner hours, and various snack foods during other times, including pizza pucks, grilled cheese sandwiches, and cheeseburgers (see Jon Weyers). It's companion was at this time known as Gordo's, which refers to Gordon's Cafe, and was basically just a cafeteria which was only open during mealtime. It has since been turned into a sort of convenience store known as Ed's. Believe it or not, Pop's, Ed's, and Gordon's are all named after the same man.

5. Capture the flag was played several times on Bascom Hill that year and in later years. Traditional boundaries went from Observatory Drive on the North side, the steps beyond Bascom Hall on the west side, the road behind the Law Building and the sidewalk in front of Birge Hall on the south side, and Park Street on the East side. The dividing line was usually the sidewalk middle north-south sidewalk on Bascom Hill.

6. Focus Film Society was one of the best things that had ever happened to the UW-Madison. Every week, during the school year, the Society showed films, usually very recent releases, in room B-10 Commerce (now Ingraham Hall). The films were usually shown twice on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. Semester passes could be had for as little as eight dollars, single tickets were $2.50, and a Residence Hall Membership Card could get you in totally free to one showing a week.

The fate of Focus Films is a sore point among most older Detlingites. It's truly last year running was the 1993-1994 school year. After that, lack of volunteers to run the society caused it to die. The following year, the Wisconsin Union Directorate began something which it called Focus Films, but these were a very poor reflection of that name. They were held in the Hammerskjold room in Union South, a flat-floored room with movable chairs, not the nice slanted lecture hall with stationery seats that B-10 was, and residence hall passes could be used for a small discount on tickets, but not for free passes. The WUD refused to change their ways despite constant urging by students, and needless to say, this attempt died within the second year.

7. This phrase was attributed to a Kerri Hilbelink as spoken to CFO during one of his many visits to the floor.

8. This was probably around 5 p.m through 8 p.m on weekday nights.

9. Detling has been having Movie Nights on Thursday nights since at least 1989-1990, perhaps earlier. They are held in the TV Lounge at Sellery Hall, which has a big-screen TV. Attendance rates have varied over the years, and week to week, depending on the movie. Quite often, the person who requested the movie would not show up, which was usually frowned upon. Movie selection has always been a rather difficult process, but there has almost always been those few participants who show up to 90% of the movie nights.

10. In 1990-1991, and 1991-1992, Laura Nehls taught a class in this somewhat obscure form of Karate in the Detling Den on Monday evenings. It was rather popular, and Neil was forced to join his freshman year or risk losing his chance to be in the den on Monday evenings.

11. Until the 1994-1995 year, Detling house had a Foozball table in the den. It's origins are unknown to this author, but during the years from 1990 through 1995 it went through several stages of deterioration. This included replacement of every single man several times, countless new balls, and a few attempts to brace the legs together. The table was on its last legs during the 1993-1994 year, but survived those legs to be played on one of the Den tables for the rest of the following year. It has been replaced by a Ping Pong table which was obtained during the 1992-1993 year and is currently following a parallel course towards its end.

12. These four shows were Neil's favorite shows during this time period. It is possible that there were other shows which would have counted at this time, but if 90210 was showing that year his mind would have been deliberately blank.

13. Yes, there are indeed those residents who could have been considered non-active residents. The status of 'active' Resident would have required meeting similar criteria to this list, with the exception of item I, and a minor change to Item III. A resident could almost automatically be declared inactive if an active resident could say to him or her, "You do live on this floor?"


Neil M. Sheldon (Detling Resident, Fall 1990 through Spring 1993)