The Mallet Assembly:About
The Mallet Assembly is the premiere honors living option at the University of Alabama. It is truly self-governing. All assembly matters are decided in democratic, bi-weekly meetings and are guided by a detailed but flexible constitution. We have no "Resident Advisors" or "Hall Directors" placed by the University. Instead, we have seventeen officers, elected by the Assembly members, two live-in advisors, who are also democratically chosen by the Assembly, and three Resident Advisors who are elected members of The Mallet Assembly and are both officers and subject to the Constitution. The officers perform all administrative and leadership functions within the program. This provides members with (at least) four years' worth of opportunity to participate and take leadership responsibility in an active program. We have the highest retention rate of any living option on campus, so there are many upperclassmen and grad students who are valuable sources of information and mentoring.
Mallet provides a wide variety of activities, including the John Mallet Speaker Series, the occasional literary magazine or play, and intramural sports. In addition, we have yearly events like our Student-Faculty Christmas Mixer, the World's Smallest Mardi Gras Parade, and War Games, an all-inclusive dart war across the campus. Informal competitions are constantly being held; examples include the Chesstosterone Tournament, many video game tournaments, and a tournament for a chess-like game "Bizarro" that was created by our own Travis Hicks. Perhaps you want to go out to the Quad after it has rained 3 or more inches for a nice game of football in the middle of the night. Go for it, and expect about twenty (20) enthusiastic friends to join you. We call it "BOG BOWL".
Mallet also has a long-standing tradition of campus involvement. A Malleteer chaired the Student Government Constitutional Convention. The only African-American SGA President was a Malleteer. Many of our members have been SGA Senators, executive VP's and committee chairmen. We have had editors of the student newspaper, the Crimson White, as well as the Yearbook, the Corolla. Malleteers have been disc jockeys on campus radio and newsmen on Public Radio. We are active in Debate, College Bowl, and the Model U.N. Recently, Malleteers helped form the campus Libertarian Party organization. Most honoraries and honors programs on campus, including Phi Beta Kappa, Mortar Board, and the Computer Based Honors Program, boast Malleteers as members, and Mallet has had Fulbright Scholars, National Merit Scholars, and Presidential Scholars within its ranks.
It should be no surprise, then, that Malleteers have gone on to success in all walks of life. A member of the Assembly now serves on the University's Board of Trustees. Several Malleteers have become professors and university administrators. Many currently successful engineers (some with NASA) and businessmen (one a Coca-Cola VP) once called Mallet home, as did many of today's doctors and lawyers. Mark Childress, author and screenwriter of Crazy in Alabama, was once a Malleteer.
The Mallet Assembly is not just a program. Our home, Palmer Hall, has a number of benefits as well. We have some of the largest rooms on campus, and no residence has lower room rates. Private rooms are assigned by seniority (and to a lesser extent, availability), so after a few semesters a Malleteer can have a private room as long as he stays with us, which is sometimes through grad school. Through ResNet, we also have an in-house computer network, allowing us to play and work together online.
