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Founded | 1952, Incorporated 1962 |
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Type | Housing cooperative, Food cooperative |
Focus | Affordable student dining and housing, sustainability |
Location |
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Key people | Ani Zakarian, President Maya Denkmire, Membership Secretary Eloise Rich, Treasurer Maya Amanat, Chair of the Board 12-Month Employees: Linda Doan, Financial Manager Sundance, Business Coordinator 9 and 10 Month Employees: Barbie Thompson, Food Safety Advisor Arlene Muir, Office Assistant |
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The Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA) is a non-profit corporation founded in 1962 that feeds and houses Oberlin College students. [1] Located in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, it is independent from but closely tied to Oberlin College. OSCA is one of the largest student housing cooperatives in North America.
The first Oberlin co-op, Pyle Inn, opened in 1930 but due to poor funding existed only intermittently. By 1949, however, students dissatisfied with the college's dining system chose to revive the cooperative food system. The Inter-Cooperative Council (ICC) was founded in conjunction between Pyle and the newly opened Grey Gables, with a mission to serve as an educational and social committee. By 1962, with the inception of Keep, the ICC became the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, the largest student-run cooperative in American history.
OSCA flourished for another twenty years, but underwent a critical financial crisis in 1982. OSCA was audited by the IRS and nearly lost its tax-exempt status. [2] This setback caused a rift in the community and instigated the start of several major changes to the cooperative structure.
By 1989, the organization committed to practices of sustainability and environmentalism, purchasing local foods and cooking with more environmentally-friendly practices. In the spring of 2002, OSCA created the institution of COPAO, the Committee on Privilege and Oppression, which explores racial and socio-economic inequality within the cooperative system. [3] This has evolved over time into OSCA's current bi-yearly Privilege & Oppression Workshop series, where OSCA members are invited to hold workshops on different aspects of OSCA in order to educate membership on the roles of privilege & oppression within the organization. OSCA members are required to attend or lead at least one workshop every semester.
During the COVID Pandemic in 2020, Oberlin College and OSCA negotiated a new rent contract, more officially splitting the two entities. The contract greatly increased the amount of rent OSCA pays for the use of its buildings while removing many services and supports that the college had previously offered OSCA. This has led to a shift in OSCA's reputation on campus, as the organization is now much more expensive and offers less comprehensive services than other campus options. This, along with declining membership and inflation, has led to tensions within OSCA in the last few years, especially as recent leadership teams have deteriorated relationships with Oberlin College.
OSCA pays rent to Oberlin College for use of its buildings, but otherwise operates autonomously. OSCA collects its own tuition, manages its own finances, organizes its own members, buys directly from local farms, and manages its operations without Oberlin College intervention. Largely, the organization is run by its member-owners. For large decisions that affect all OSCA co-ops, student members vote by OSCA's consensus process on all rules and implement decisions. This process also occurs at the level of the individual co-op.
OSCA members fill all positions within the co-ops, such as president, Sexual Harm Information Liaisons (SHILs), head cook, and kitchen prep. Members of OSCA do all of the cooking, cleaning, food buying, baking, and other tasks within their individual co-ops. Members can also work for money and/or hours in elected or hired positions such as Board Rep, Cleanliness & Maintenance Coordinator, or Accessibility Committee Coordinator. Each co-op decides at the beginning of each semester how much time members must contribute. For those who hold jobs outside of the co-op, most co-ops will offer "time aid" to significantly reduce the number of co-op hours required. Every member of OSCA must clean up after one meal a week. [4]
The organization also employs two Full-time Employees, a Financial Manager and Business Coordinator, and two part-time Employees: a Food Safety and Operations Advisor, and an Office Assistant.
Every fall, OSCA members vote for the corporation's officers for the next year, including OSCA President, Treasurer, Chair of the Board, and Membership Secretary. These officers, along with other student staff and adult employees, make up the general management team, or the GMT. The GMT deals with the overall operations of the co-ops, but generally does not involve itself in minute decisions. In addition to this operational management, OSCA's policies and protocols are managed by the Board of Directors. This Board is made up of two representatives from every co-op as well as the chair of the board.
There are no meal cards or cafeteria trays in co-ops. Communal meals are prepared for lunch at 12:20 pm and dinner at 6:20 pm, and the kitchens are open 24/7. Guest policies are set by members so they can bring friends and professors to meals. Many co-ops are vegetarian and vegan-friendly, and allergy awareness among the membership is always a priority. [5] Mealtime is often spent discussing co-op related issues, ranging from electing head cooks to determining health and safety policies for the co-op at large.
The principles which guide modern cooperative organizations including OSCA were formulated in 1844 by a group of textile workers in Rochdale, England who were fed up with the exploitative nature of the market during the British Industrial Revolution. They decided to pool their money and open a small retail store which operated on principles which have become the foundation of modern co-ops. [6] The principles laid down by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers have since been adapted to fit the modern cooperative context. In 1995, the International Cooperative Alliance adopted a revised list of the cooperative principles, which OSCA uses today in a modified form. In 2014, the membership ratified substantial changes to the cooperative principles. [7]
All members of OSCA equally own and participate in running OSCA. However, there are certain individual leadership roles that function on an all-OSCA level (rather than on an individual co-op level) in order to allow OSCA to function as the large organization that it is. These jobs include four Officer positions and a number of All-OSCA student staff positions. Students in these roles oversee different aspects of OSCA. While in the past most positions were elected annually, OSCA has transitioned to hiring for most All-OSCA roles. Examples include Housing Loose End Coordinators, the OSCA-Oberlin College Liaison, Dining and Housing Operations Managers, and various committee coordinators.
Each co-op also employs many of its members in specific positions; work performed in these positions counts towards a student's hours within their co-op. These roles exist distinctly within housing and dining co-ops, and one student may hold both a housing and dining co-op job to fulfill their required hours. Examples in dining include Tasty Things Makers, Bread Makers, Kitchen Coordinators, Party Coordinators, and Food Buyers. Examples in housing include Clean Coordinators, Garden Coordinators, and Supply Coordinators.
OSCA operates four co-ops with housing and dining facilities: Keep, Tank, Harkness and Third World Co-op/Third World Social-Justice Co-op. It also has one dining-only co-op, Pyle Inn Co-op. All of these coops are located inside of Oberlin College-owned buildings. [8]
Harkness opened in 1950 as a women's dorm, and in September 1967, Harkness became the fourth Oberlin housing and dining co-op. In 1979, Harkness became the first Oberlin co-op to use consensus, a decision process that soon spread throughout OSCA. Also in 1979, Harkness created the Contraceptive Co-op, which eventually transformed into today's Sexual Information Center at Oberlin. [9] For many years, Harkness was also home to the Good Food Co-op, a consumer cooperative that was run and used by both Oberlin College students and Oberlin community members. Harkness traditions include operating the large basement dining room as a dance club and hosting a Jellyfish Parade during every full moon. Its mascot, a grey paper-maché shark, hangs in the main stairway, and lends the moniker "sharks" to Hark's membership.
Harkness is also home to Third World Social Justice Co-op (TWSJ), which provides safe-space housing for BIPOC Oberlin Students and OSCA members. It is closely related to the Third World Co-op (TWC), which provides safe-space dining for the same groups: they are often seen as the housing and dining parts of one larger Third-World Co-op. Unlike other housing & dining co-ops, though, TWSJ and TWC are housed separately in different buildings, with Baldwin House, one of Oberlin College's women and trans* houses situated on the opposite side of Harkness Bowl, housing the TWC kitchen. OSCA has been dealing with reports of internal racism against members of TWC/TWSJ for years, and a Racism in OSCA panel has become a staple of the Privilege & Oppression Workshops the organization holds every semester. Both TWSJ and TWC are the lowest-membership co-ops in their respective categories.
Tank is OSCA's second-largest co-op, located a quarter mile east of any other building on Oberlin's Campus. Tank traditions include the annual Pig Roast. Tank is currently home to both the OSCA office, which houses most of OSCA's adult employees (the Food Safety & Operations Advisor works out of Harkness). While many OSCA co-ops have a certain image within the Oberlin community, none is more solidified than Tank's as a frat house. Tank is also home to the Book Co-op, which offers used textbooks to Oberlin College students free of charge.
Housed in a Tudor-style building just north of Tappan Square, Keep Co-op is one of OSCA's oldest. The co-op is famous for eating on its large porch and steps in all weather and seasons. There is some debate as to whether Keep or Harkness first began the tradition of Friday Night Pizza, but the tradition has persisted in Keep as well as in Harkness. Keep is also home to the Bike Co-op, an independently run co-operative providing bike maintenance to Oberlin College students. Members of the co-op can also learn how to build their own bicycles, and are encouraged to keep any they build after a certain amount of labor has been committed. Though separate from OSCA, it operates on many the same principles.
OSCA's oldest co-op, Pyle Inn has been operating continuously for over 70 years. Over time, its location has moved frequently around Oberlin's campus, but it is now housed in the basement of Asia House, along with Oberlin's Free Store. It is currently OSCA's only dining-only co-op, with no housing component or related co-op. While Pyle was once OSCA's largest co-op, membership has declined steeply in recent years, as changes in messaging from OSCA and Oberlin College has led to it being viewed as a "First-Year Co-op", filled largely with new, unexperienced members. Operating out of Asia House has caused difficulty for the co-op, as Asia House is intended to be a safe-space for Asian students to live on campus, many of whom are not in co-ops, leading to tense relationships between the two bodies.
Fairchild, known on campus and by its members as "Fairkid," was a dining-only co-op that opened in 1977 in the basement of Fairchild Hall. Initially, student survey determined that students were interested in a healthier dining option, so Fairchild opened as an "all-natural" co-op. Overtime, it eventually became a vegan co-op. Until Spring of 2017, the co-op shared its space with Brown Bag Co-op, a grocery-store style co-op for students living in village or off-campus housing. [10] Fairchild Co-op was closed during the COVID Pandemic. In its space, Oberlin College now operates Clarity Dining Hall, an allergen-free kitchen.
Old Barrows, also known as Old B, was one of the earliest co-ops on Oberlin College's campus. Originally founded as a housing-only co-op, Old B eventually expanded and became the home of Brown Bag Co-op, a grocery-style co-op. Old Barrows, similarly to Third World Co-op/Third World Social Justice Co-op, was operated as an identity-based dorm for Trans people and women. Though OSCA has not rented Old B since the end of the pandemic, Oberlin College still operates the building as a women and trans* dorm through its identity-based housing program.
Talcott Hall was the home of Kosher-Halal Co-op. Through its intermittent relationship with KHC, OSCA occasionally operated the building's kitchen.
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second-oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States.
A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Typically housing cooperatives are owned by shareholders but in some cases they can be owned by a non-profit organization. They are a distinctive form of home ownership that have many characteristics that differ from other residential arrangements such as single family home ownership, condominiums and renting.
The Santa Barbara Student Housing Coop (SBSHC) is a student housing cooperative designed to provide affordable housing for students attending post-secondary institutions in Santa Barbara County. The first coop was established in 1976, and today consists of five houses; Newman, Manley, Dolores, Biko and Merton. In all, just under 100 students live in these houses.
The Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan (ICC) is a student owned and operated housing cooperative serving students and community members in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The ICC is an active member of NASCO.
The Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC) is a student housing cooperative serving primarily UC Berkeley students, but open to any full-time post-secondary student. The BSC houses and/or feeds over 1,300 students in 17 houses and three apartment buildings. Food is provided to residents of the 17 houses, which also offer boarding meal plans to non-residents. As part of their rental agreement, residents of the houses are required to perform workshifts, typically five hours per week. The BSC is led by a board of directors which is primarily composed of and elected by student members.
The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 7,000 registered co-operatives owned by 17 million individual members and which contribute £34bn a year to the British economy. Modern co-operation started with the Rochdale Pioneers' shop in the northern English town of Rochdale in 1844, though the history of co-operation in Britain can be traced back to before 1800. The British co-operative movement is most commonly associated with The Co-operative brand which has been adopted by several large consumers' co-operative societies; however, there are many thousands of registered co-operative businesses operating in the UK. Alongside these consumers' co-operatives, there exist many prominent agricultural co-operatives (621), co-operative housing providers (619), health and social care cooperatives (111), cooperative schools (834), retail co-operatives, co-operatively run community energy projects, football supporters' trusts, credit unions, and worker-owned businesses.
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit. Many cooperatives, however, do have a degree of profit orientation. Just like other corporations, some cooperatives issue dividends to owners based on a share of total net profit or earnings ; or based on a percentage of the total amount of purchases made by the owner. Regardless of whether they issue a dividend or not, most consumers’ cooperatives will offer owners discounts and preferential access to goods and services.
Madison Community Cooperative, or MCC, is a housing cooperative composed of 11 houses in Madison, Wisconsin with around 200 resident members.
A food cooperative or food co-op is a food distribution outlet organized as a cooperative, rather than a private or public company. Food cooperatives are usually consumer cooperatives, where the decisions regarding the production and distribution of its food are chosen by its members. Like all cooperatives, food cooperatives are often based on the 7 Rochdale Principles, and they typically offer natural foods. Decisions about how to run a cooperative are not made by outside shareholders, therefore cooperatives often exhibit a higher degree of social responsibility than their corporate analogues.
A student housing cooperative, also known as co-operative housing, is a housing cooperative for student members. Members live in alternative cooperative housing that they personally own and maintain. These houses are designed to lower housing costs while providing an educational and community environment for students to live and grow in. They are, in general, nonprofit, communal, and self-governing, with students pooling their monetary and personal resources to create a community style home. Many student housing cooperatives share operation and governing of the house. As with most cooperatives, student housing coops follow the Rochdale Principles and promote collaboration and community work done by the members for mutual benefit.
The Two Dickinson Street Co-op, or 2D, is one of the five student dining co-ops at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. 2D is a 50-member vegetarian cooperative located across the street from the Princeton University campus.
Spartan Housing Cooperative (SHC) is a nonprofit member owned and operated housing cooperative. The SHC was formed as in 1969, as a federation of existing student housing cooperatives in East Lansing. Since the first of the SHC's member houses formed 69 years ago, SHC has accumulated more than 4,000 members.
Princeton University eating clubs are private institutions resembling both dining halls and social houses, where the majority of Princeton undergraduate upperclassmen eat their meals. Each eating club occupies a large mansion on Prospect Avenue, one of the main roads that runs through the Princeton campus, with the exception of Terrace Club which is just around the corner on Washington Road. This area is known to students colloquially as "The Street". Princeton's eating clubs are the primary setting in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 debut novel, This Side of Paradise, and the clubs appeared prominently in the 2004 novel The Rule of Four.
The Ravenna Kibbutz was a nondenominational Jewish intentional community from 2007–2012 located in the Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle. Its three rented houses and one apartment were home to 15 resident-organizers, who plan public programs such as Shabbat dinners and Jewish movie nights. The Kibbutz's ideology was not communistic; it was not a true commune but simply an example of cohousing. The Pacific Northwest contains many cohousing communities and a wide variety of Jewish organizations, but thus far the region has no other Jewish cohousing community.
Escher Cooperative House, named after artist M. C. Escher, is one of the Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan's (ICC) 16 student housing cooperatives. It is located at 1500 to 1520 Gilbert Court in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The only North Campus-located cooperative, it is the ICC's largest community with over 150 spaces of residents and 9 separately themed "suites." It is also the only building in Ann Arbor built specifically for cooperative housing.
Keep Cottage, also known as Keep Cooperative is an 1839 post-Victorian tudor revival mansion owned and maintained by Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Originally home to the Reverend John Keep, the house underwent a serious renovation in 1911 in order to transform it into a college dormitory. In 1965, it is a rental property of Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, the second largest student cooperative in the United States. It is named after its primary trustee, the reverend John Keep, an abolitionist who cast the deciding vote that let African-American students attend Oberlin College, the first institution to do so.
Tank Hall, also known as Tank House and Tank Cooperative, is an 1897 Queen Anne living and dining cooperative owned and maintained by Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Originally the Tank Home for Missionary Children, the house underwent a series of renovations before becoming the co-op it is today. It currently operates as one of the Oberlin Student Co-operative's co-ops.
The Eugene V. Debs Cooperative House is a student housing cooperative founded in 1967, one of the 18 cooperative houses which make up the Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan. Debs Cooperative is located at 909 East University Avenue in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is named for Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs. Debs has a reputation for being politically active, socially conscious, and environmentally focused. House funds go towards maintenance and the purchase of organic food, and members of the house cook vegetarian and vegan meals five nights a week.
Waterloo Co-operative Residence Inc. (WCRI) is a non-profit student housing cooperative located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is owned by its residents, also known as members, who attend the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Conestoga College. The co-op is governed by the Rochdale Principles.