Woollcott House is one of the five Hamilton Residence Halls that line Campus Road. It currently houses the Co-op. Next semester, it will house the MOSAIC SIC. Photo courtesy of Google Maps.
For most students on campus, Woollcott House is much better known as “Co-op.” The residence hall currently houses its namesake, the Woollcott Cooperative (colloquially known as the Co-op), a special interest living community. However, the Co-op program will not continue in the 2023–2024 academic year. Instead, Woollcott will host “MOSAIC: Multidisciplinary Opportunities to Share Art Interest Community.”
The Co-op is one of Hamilton’s several special interest communities (SIC) — “a group of students who choose to live together based on a shared interest in a specific topic,” according to the Hamilton Residential Life website. Students who choose to live in a SIC work towards relevant goals throughout the year by building a community and sharing in the experience of living with one another.
The Co-op is described by ResLife as “a collective of students who are seeking a food-focused and family-style housing experience among peers.” In the program, students plan for, prepare for and shop for their meals using a budget provided by Residential Life. The Co-op is currently housed in Woollcott House because of its large commercial kitchen. Students who participate in the Co-op are expected to “be interested in and excited to learn more about locally sourced food, exploring food values as a community, learning how to handle food properly and working together to create delicious meals.”
Several people contribute to the success of each SIC: Advisors, Program Coordinators, Participants, ResLife and Resident Advisors. The advisor is a faculty or staff member at Hamilton that contributes to the SIC throughout the year by meeting with participants, assisting with setting goals and planning events. Though the ResLife website states that an “advisor should be someone who is not on the Residential Life staff,” the Co-op advisor is Tanith Sherman, assistant director of Residential Life. Sherman works closely with the current Program Coordinator, Bobby Grygiel ’23, to support the functioning of the Co-op.
Many of those involved with the Co-op this year, including Sherman and Grygiel, expressed that the Co-op has been more difficult to manage since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fall 2022 was the first time the Co-op was has been functioning in a full capacity since the pandemic, and several changes were required to keep the program afloat. According to Ashley Place, director of Residential Life, and Tanith Sherman, the Health Department set new standards for the upkeep of the Co-op kitchen which has proven to be more intense than the pre-pandemic years. “COVID was hard on the Co-op. The Co-op that existed when everybody came back was brutal. It was really hard. We did a lot of exploring to see how we could make people enjoy the experience, and it just wasn’t going to be enjoyable. I think we’ve come a really long way since that low point from COVID and I think we’ve rebuilt in a way that meets the requirements from the health department,” said Place.
In an email to the Spectator, Grygiel and Eva Glassman ’23 shared that “it’s been both a slow start and a huge effort to reboot the program from scratch and spread awareness and education about it among the residents and the campus at large.” Despite this, they also noted “the twenty-or-so of us have put lots of effort into being full, active participants, and through this commitment we’ve embodied the values of community and responsibility that the Co-op is meant to foster.”
When asked why the Co-op was discontinued, Sherman explained that the decision came from a lack of interest from the campus community. She shared that the amount of applications she received would not even fill half of the Woollcott House.
Grygiel and Glassman were surprised by the lack of interest and felt “something wasn’t adding up.” They said they did not think there was the level of advertising they expected. They only received two emails advertising the Co-op and that “current residents of the Co-op who wanted to live there next year weren’t even aware applications were open, so they missed the deadline to apply.” Additionally, both students noted that Sherman told them “at the beginning of the semester that administration has wanted to get rid of the Co-op for a long time and that she’s been fighting against its dissolution.” Conversely, Sherman expressed that Residential Life did more marketing for the Co-op than they ever have in previous years. She explained that there were three information sessions about the SIC, she met with several students independently to speak about the community and she collaborated with five current members of the Co-op to create a plan for the advertising and recruiting plans for the 2023–2024 academic year. Sherman did share that in the marketing for Co-op she was sure to explain the commitment required for participants in the program. Ashley Place added, “there’s a lot of complex things that happen in the Co-op so that it can function, and it’s a lot of work for students. It makes sense that students are a little hesitant to sign up for that amount of work…there’s a lot of payoff at the end of it, but it is a lot of work.”
Current members of the Co-op have expressed frustration and disappointment regarding this decision. Glassman and Grygiel stated, “we’re all outraged by the lack of communication about this situation from ResLife…We’ve always considered the Co-op a unique and important establishment on campus — it’s a cruel irony that not less than a week after Angela Davis comes to campus to talk about the importance of community-building, the Hamilton housing that embodies the very definition of that is taken away from students.”
Place shared that she is highly supportive of the Co-op and has been since she came to Hamilton in 2009 as an area director responsible for Woollcott House and the supervisor of Co-op. Place explained that a long time ago the Co-op existed in a different form — “It ended up not working and not existing for a few years, and then it came back as the Co-op we knew and loved before COVID.”
Speaking to the future, Place said, “if we have a group of students who want to put the Co-op back together next year or the year after that, we’re very open and excited to support that.…If there’s someone who wants to think creatively about what a co-op could look like, that isn’t necessarily the Co-op that existed during the COVID years or prior to that, we’re very interested in that. We’re thinking about things we could do and ideas we can share with students.” Place continued, “I love the Co-op. I love the concept of it. I love the experience of it. I think it really matters to the students who participate in it, but it does really require a substantial amount of students in order to work.”
Sherman added that she and the students in Co-op have worked hard and taken special care to create a system that is sustainable year after year, so “if someone wants to do a Co-op again for the 2024–2025 year, we just simply have to pick it back up.”
Next semester, Woollcott House will host MOSAIC. This SIC is “is dedicated to intersecting art practices of our members and promoting free and collaborative creative expression. Our goal is to provide a supportive environment for creative development across multiple disciplines, including photography, pottery, music, painting, design, and more. MOSAIC is a space for art majors, minors, or those just interested in art to be able to share ideas, resources, materials, and create art together in their personal spaces. We want to promote collaboration and learning from each other, as well as give those who can’t fit art into their schedules a chance to create. We hope to connect creatives looking to take risks, collaborate, and try something new!”