When we set out to redesign and rename SFU, we solicited input from staff and community members alike in choosing a new name. Many suggestions were given, but Jennifer's idea of The Electronic Algonquin Round Table was the one that stuck in many of our minds. "Elgonquin" is short for "Electronic Algonquin Round Table." Okay, so what is the Algonquin Round Table?

The Algonquin Round Table was the nickname given to a group of people who met daily for lunch at New York City's Algonquin Hotel in the 1920s. The group was comprised of many notable figures, including Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, and others. The spirit of the Algonquin Round Table is summed up in the Following quote from Gary Kamiya's article in Salon.com, about the History of Salons:

And, of course, there was America's most famous salon -- the Algonquin Round Table. In the long and peculiar history of salons, the Round Table holds a pleasingly weird niche. The daily luncheon gathering at the Algonquin Hotel, which started in 1920 and ran for ten years or so, was composed of a group of writers, editors and wits, a remarkably high percentage of whom were full-blown alcoholics, and most of whom posterity has not honored with literary immortality. Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woolcott, Heywood Broun, and Robert Benchley were the big names, and theirs is a pretty second-rate writer's Olympia. What they did leave was a legacy of good fellowship, bon mots, wit -- a legacy, in short, of fun.

We feel that this describes our community very well (maybe with the exception of the alcoholics bit!). We discuss current events and the like, we goof off and have fun, we explore our inner selves and our creativity.

If this describes you, too, then please take some time to get to know us! Read our journals, check out some of our fiction, or post to the Round Table. You can join in an on-going conversation, or start a new thread of your own!