Students cooperate with diverse living arrangements

At the offices of the Inter-Cooperative Council, Director of Member Services Amy Sara Clark has no trouble profiling the University of Michigan's local co-ops. With approximately 600 members in 19 houses, Ann Arbor boasts one of the largest and best known cooperative housing organizations in the world.

In addition to its size, Clark cited the variety of houses that the ICC offers as an attraction to students. The off-campus houses range in size from 12 to 84 residents, all-female or co-ed, North or Central Campus. "You can find whatever size house you want," she said.

Even at the largest co-ops, whose volumes rival or surpasses that of fraternities, sororities and University Alternative Houses, the element of togetherness isn't lost, Clark maintained. "It's social," she allowed, "but it's not huge and impersonal."

As both an employee and resident in the ICC, Clark highlighted the definition of cooperation in co-ops.

"It's all resident-run," Clark said, adding, "we call it 'member.' When you move in, you become a member." And it's not just a name, she said; joining a co-op means more than boarding, cooking and cleaning in a house full of other students. It's an investment of both resources and ideology from each member.

Being run by members is exactly what distinguishes the cooperative system from any other student housing, Clark continued. "It's run democratically." All members are, in fact, voting members, who have a say in decision-making for their houses.

"Decisions are made democratically on different kinds of levels," Clark said. That means that any house question - when to throw a party, what kinds of food to keep in the kitchen, what kind of maintenance the house needs - is up to the members of that house.

E Pluribus Unum, the Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts, Let's Join Together and Feel All Right - Clark's statements of the co-op philosophy conjure up some of the most grandiose of mottoes, from the United States Treasury's to Bob Marley's.

On an evening last week, as the first snow of the year covered Ann Arbor, those statements were tested. In every neighborhood around campus, students walked, heads bowed to the wind and snowflakes, from their studies or jobs to their homes.

As six o'clock approaches, members converged on Black Elk Co-op, the porch resonating with stomping feet knocking the heavy snow from their soles. Coats were thrown onto the couches and benches lining the dining room.

Casey, an LSA transfer student from Schoolcraft Community College, emerged from the kitchen, his dinner plate heaping with black beans, rice, taco salad and non-dairy sour cream.

"Good dinner night, good dinner night," he chanted to a few arriving members. Soon, he was sitting at one of two banquet tables, eating and talking with those sitting around him.

The stereo slammed out Fear Factory remixes, then haunting Billie Holiday ballads, through the bi-level kitchen and into the dining room. Students convened at the tables, pulling up chairs and, when there were no more chairs, stools and cinder blocks. When even those run out, one woman slid over, offering half of her chair to a visitor. A round of applause erupted for that night's cooks.

Clark's words and the co-op dinner scene both contrast sharply with University Student Housing policies, under which first-year students often have no choice as to where they live. Cafeteria meal plans are generally required in traditional University housing. Stories from September, of overcrowded first-year students forced to sleep in lounges, still echo on campus.

The ICC, too, has had increased demand this year; many houses have waiting lists. But Clark noted that the ICC deals with increased popularity differently than does the Entree Office. Guests are welcome, but co-ops try to avoid cramming in more residents than they can hold.

In light of this co-op boom, many speculate as to why students prefer co-op living.

B. Tubbs, a1996 Art School graduate and longtime co-op member, said the answer is simple. "I'll use a hot word right now: diversity."

Tubbs now lives in Ypsilanti but works on campus and continues to board at Black Elk Co-op. Just finished with dinner, he expanded upon his statement, saying, "It's not a race thing; it's a personality thing. Each house definitely has a distinct personality."

Tubbs described Black Elk as his favorite house, echoing the many students on its waiting list for residents who have made Black Elk the most popular co-op.

Joining a co-op, Clark said, has its privileges, but it comes with some responsibilities, too. "Within each house, each member does four hours of work each week, so everyone shares work responsibility." This can mean cooking, dish washing, housecleaning, maintenance, even bookkeeping.

It's worth it, Clark said; when the members put in time and energy for the house every week, they are effectively making life easier for one another. When a few people cook dinner, they can feed the entire house.

For every meal members cook, or collection of dishes they wash, they have many meals cooked, and dishes washed, for them.

This basic tenet of cooperative living seemed to work nicely at last week's dinner. Even toward the end of the evening, a woman in the kitchen gladly accepted dishes from everyone finishing with dinner.

Clark said that the dinnertime atmosphere reflects a primary advantage of co-op membership. "It's just an incredibly convenient place to live," she said.

That can be a mixed blessing, though, according to Tubbs.

"The worst thing about co-ops is, it's hard to make it compatible with students. In order to have well-run co-ops, you need people there who are going to stay with it, try to make it better, for a while. And students are very transient."

It doesn't work, Tubbs contended, to stick with a co-op for just the school year, then leave for the summer. Even when students return to co-ops for several years, he said, their commitment is interrupted by the demands of school, as well as vacations. It's not the same as having a home for years, he said.

Donning his jacket and backpack, Tubbs started for the door. Before he went back out into the snow, he paused, and added that he was still fond of his co-op and that he'd continue to be a member. "Come back to eat with us sometime," Tubbs said.

11-20-97