Orange Key Society

Orange Key Society was organized in 1935 on the model of Dartmouth's Green Key Society, which had won President Dodds's admiration when he visited Hanover to speak at a conference there. Due at midnight, he missed a train connection and, arriving at two in the morning, was surprised and pleased to find a Green Key undergraduate waiting for him with a car, a thermos of hot coffee, and a friendly greeting.

Originally the Orange Key's primary mission was to welcome visitors to the University and to shepherd athletic teams from other Colleges around Princeton. Gradually it assumed other functions: the campus guide service, the Red Cross blood drive, the sponsorship of student-faculty get-togethers, the organization of dances and other social events, and -- its most distinctive activity -- the Freshman Keycept Program. The Keycept Program, whose name and methods were derived from the preceptorial system, helped to introduce freshmen to life at Princeton through periodic meetings in small groups with a Keyceptor from the Junior Class.

In recent years, in order to meet an expanding demand by visiting groups, the Orange Key has made the campus guide service its principal function.

From Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).