Volume 124 Issue 99
Friday, February 17, 2012
kansan.com
FEATURE
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The Sunflower house, located at 1406 Tennessee, currently houses 28 people in its 33 available rooms. It is the largest of the three student housing cooperatives that fall under the University of Kansas Student Housing Association. The Ad Astra house, located at 1033 Kentucky, has 10 rooms and the Olive house, located at 1614 Kentucky, has eight. Both the Ad Astra and Olive houses are at full occupancy.
The Lawrence co-ops are part of a much larger trend. The United Nations General Assembly has designated 2012 as the International Year of Co-ops. Social.un.org says the goal is to highlight the cooperatives' contributions to socio-economic development, specifically their impact on poverty reduction, job creation and social integration.
HOW IT WORKS AND WHEN IT DOESN'T
The International Cooperative Alliance website says a cooperative is an independent group of people united voluntarily to meet shared economic, social and cultural needs through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise. A cooperative can take many forms from, a business such as the Merc, to production or housing.
Together the entities decided that UKSHA could not afford to repair the Sunflower house, nor could it take out a large enough loan. As a result, in June 2010, NASCO Properties purchased all three houses. Daniel Miller, the general manager for NASCO, says the organization quickly got to work on rebuilding Sunflower. He says the remodeling took about six months. During that time, most of the residents were evicted. To populate the house again, an intern from NASCO and six or seven residents from the Olive house and Ad Astra house moved into Sunflower.
The University of Kansas Student Housing Association, or UKSHA, is the local nonprofit organization that maintains the Sunflower, Ad Astra and Olive houses. It is not affiliated with the University of Kansas. About a year and a half ago, the Sunflower house was in need of serious repair. The building was dilapidated; bathrooms did not work; it became a squatters' haven. UKSHA requested help from a national co-op nonprofit by the name of NASCO, or North American Students of Cooperation.
With the help of NASCO and the other UKSHA houses, the Sunflower house is functioning once again. Miller says Sunflower is a good-looking co-op. The members who live there have formed committees; they know how to plan and carry out marketing; how to deal with conflict when it arises; and, how to perform basic maintenance on the house, he says. Miller says the house is self-aware.
NASCO Properties and UKSHA continue
"The co-op has members who know what is going on and are involved in managing and educating new members," he says.
to act as a system for the co-ops to pool their resources. Miller says inhabitants carry out the day-to-day operation of a co-op. They decide their own rent and do minor maintenance on the house, like replacing a doorknob or cleaning out the pipes under a sink. If an issue arises that they do not know how to fix, they can turn to the experience of the other co-ops in UKSHA or NASCO. Miller says NASCO also provides loans for co-ops with larger maintenance issues.
Jason Hering, the former UKSHA president, says that while it has not always been the case, leases for the UKSHA co-ops last six months or one year. All of the houses expect members to contribute about five to eight hours each week on the house. This time is contributed to chores, like sweeping the porch or cooking a meal; committee meetings, for issues such as maintenance or recruiting; and house projects, such as replacing a toilet or retiring a floor. The rent for each house varies depending on the size and desirability of the room. Currently, the average rent per month for the Sunflower house is $395, the Ad Astra house is $350 and the Olive house is $330. These amounts include utilities and some bulk food purchases, such as rice, beans and popcorn.
Andrew Haverkamp says the day-to-day of each house varies because of the cultural differences among the houses. Haverkamp, a current resident of the Olive house, says the Ad Astra house is primarily focused on sustainability. The house has a large compost operation and a beautiful garden, and the residents collect rainwater.
"Then, Sunflower house, they have a lot of different committees. They eat dinner five days a week together, whereas our house sort of has a reputation for being a little bit more relaxed. We have bonfires. It's pretty chill," Haverkamp, a senior from Hoyt, says.
Krista Jobst lived in the Sunflower house from August to December 2008. Jobst, a sophomore from Tonganoxie, says 27 people lived in Sunflower when she resided there. She says residents tended to hang out with those who lived in the same wing of the house or who had similar daily schedules. You could find something going on at all hours of the day and night. Jobst says.
"You woke up, saw your friends, went to work or school; then, when you came back in the afternoon or evening there were always people playing video games, ordering food, making food, playing weird games on the computer or playing music," Jobst says. "There were a lot of people who used to get together and sing songs upstairs on the piano or with their guitar or their banjo. That was really fun."
While the culture of cooperatives may vary among houses, the mindset behind cooperative living has changed little through
out time. According to KUHistory.com, the Olive house, opened in 1939 and originally named the Jayhawk Co-op, was KU's first independent cooperative living arrangement. The website says that the all-male student cooperative grew out of the difficult economic environment of the Great Depression and attributes much of the early success of the Olive house to a late-1930s undergraduate named Gerald Fiedler.
Among Fiedler's correspondence during the summer of 1939 is a letter to a potential recruit in which he wrote, "Everything will be done to maintain a high standard of living at a minimum price. We will buy wholesale where possible and members will be allowed to bring meat and fruit from home if they live on a farm. They will be allowed a reasonable rate for it."
The original Jayhawk Co-op closed in 1943. The house went through a series of cooperative inhabitants, including an all-female group who renamed the house "the Kaw Koette Co-op," and was eventually sold in 1965. The house ceased operation as a cooperative for more than 30 years, until UKSHA purchased the property in 1998 and reopened it as a cooed-cooperative.
TOOPERATORS
The newest co-op, the Ad Astra house, opened in 2005. Eight women and two men occupy its 10 rooms. They have dinner together every Friday and Sunday night at a round table adorned with a KU tablecloth. This Friday, Sara Mae Martens, a graduate student and practicing architect, is the cook. Martens has long blond hair and straight bangs. She leans forward, her shoulders curling inward, as she laughs at a story told by one of her roommates, Ana Wilde. Wilde, an AmeriCorps member, says the key to a co-op is cooperation, which doesn't always happen when you have a bunch of people living together.
There was a man living in Ad Astra for about a year, she says, who graduated from KU and took an internship position in Kansas City. The internship turned into a full-time job and it became easier for him to stay in Kansas City. Though he no longer occupied his room, Wilde says, someone else began to.
"He was spending more and more time there. All of a sudden, we don't see him at all, and we see this new gentleman, Wilde says.
Wilde's roommates stop her storytelling to correct the word "gentleman" to describe the room's new dweller.
"Ok, guy. So there's this new guy. There are signs of him. He's not like living, living in the house, but he's definitely in that room," Wilde says. "The previous resident said this friend of his was going to stay for a couple days. A couple days turned into a couple weeks, and then no communication came from either the former member or this guy."
MORE CO-OPS OF THE LAWRENCE COMMUNITY
DELAWARE STREET COMMONS
1222 Delaware St
Lawrence, KS 65044
21 Units. A mix of two bedroom flats,
three bedroom flats and three bedroom
townhomes
Demographic: Singles, couples with and
without children
PINE TREE TOWNHOMES
PINE TREE TOWNHOMES
149 Pinecone Drive
Lawrence, KS 66046
167 Units: One-to-three bedroom
townhouses
Demographic: Families of differing ages
COSMIC BEAUTY SCHOOL
1145 Pennsylvania St
Lawrence, Kansas 66044
Four bedrooms in a mixed-use building
Demographic: Upper-20s to lower-30s
KOINONIA
1204 Oread Ave. Lawrence, K5, 66044 Six bedrooms on the first floor of the Ecumenical Christian Ministries building Demographic: KU undergraduate and graduate students
Wilde says she and the other members of the house held several meetings and were ready to throw the new guy out when out of the blue the new guy asked if he could help around the house.
"He was like, 'Hey guys, I've been down there for a couple weeks. Is there something I can help with?' Wilde says.
She says he helped clean and everyone was happy, for a very short time.
"That slid him in. And then, he never cleaned again." Wilde says.
She says the new guy eventually signed a lease, but never became a good cooperator: He didn't take the time to care for the house or nurture his relationships with the other house members. Wilde's roommate, Jena Hartman, says a good cooperator is one who takes advantages of the diversity in the house, who spends time exploring the different cultures and opinions among roommates. Cooperators share a common sense of community, not necessarily a common taste in music, which is why, "What kind of music do you like?" isn't a question asked during the interview process.
Gabriela Toledo moved into the Sunflower house on Feb. 8, 2012.
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NEAL/KANSAN
A limited budget, a month of rehearsal and a cast and crew comprised completely of students could be a director's worst nightmare. For Jacci Lufkin, it was a dream come true.
"You get a minimal budget, a minimal set so that it's only about your acting and your directing," Lufkin said. "This is supposed to be about the students that you're directing and what you can get out of them as far as your acting ability."
Lukin was excited about the chance to direct a project since opportunities for aspiring theater directors are often limited. But being in charge of the show isn't easy. Her first task was choosing a one-act play that could be successfully staged with the available
This year Lukkin, a junior from Melbourne, Fla., was the one student selected by the University Theatre Department to direct a one-act play.
The length of the show also allowed Lukkin and her actors, Julie Miller, a senior from Hutchinson, and Alex Roschitz, a junior from Kansas City, Kan., to develop both the comedy and drama of the play. Roschitz said that being a part of a two person cast was something he had never done before, but it gave him an opportunity to explore his character and play off of Miller. Working with a student director instead of a professor or an outside director was also something new.
s, a senior from ment at the
1930s New Orleans, the story focuses on a mother soliciting gossip from her son, who is struggling with a secret. Lufkin was drawn to the one-act play because of its emotional intensity, but also because it required little set design.
"It's a totally different experience from anything I've had." Roschitz
"It's so raw; it's so easy without anything else," Lufkin said. "You could do this in a park. You could do this in a stairwell."
After "Auto-da-fe," the recently formed group, Musical Theatre for Kansas, will perform a thirty-minute musical love story. Gil Perez-Abrahams, a junior from Wichita, said the group members, like Lufkin, were excited to have a chance to show off skills that aren't always showcased in the theater department.
The second performance is tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the William Inge Memorial Theatre in Murphy Hall. Tickets are available on the University Theatre website.
"It's so unique for a university to have this kind of opportunity for the students, just to have the group and the performance opportunities." Perez-Abrahman said.
"Whether it's dodgeball or something else, we would like to see this continue to help student organizations who have smaller budgets."
DAKOTA STRANGE
SUA Spirit Coordinator
UA
est
personal. Decisions were never 'I'm right, you're wrong.'
SUA opened the tournament up to all students, but it was geared more toward student organizations. The winning team received $225, and second place winners received $150.
oe in the final a senior from of the Sports am, said the d to fund an ion is hosting
CLASSIFIEDS 11
CROSSWORD 4
The tournament used prison ball rules, which differ slightly from regular dodgeball rules. If you are hit anywhere on the body, including your face or head, you're out. The ball is live until it touches a ceiling, a wall or floors. This means a ball is still live if it bounces off a player, which is different from normal dodgeball, where a ball is only live if it has not touched anything.
When you're hit you go to "prison",
which is located on the opposing
The Sports Management Club captured first place and the $225.
asketball tour-
Student Union Activities hosted a dodgeball tournament that consisted of 10 teams, and each team had seven players with at least three women on the team. The tournament started out as double-elimination, which means a team must lose twice to be eliminated from the tournament. After half the teams were eliminated, the tournament switched to a roundrobin format where all five teams played each other once. The teams with the two best records would face off in a best two out of three series.
CRYPTOQUIPS 4
OPINION 9
of prison ball rules is the "shame ball", which is larger than the rest of the balls. If a teammate catches the shame ball while he or she is in prison, two teammates can get out of prison.
SPORTS 12
SUDOKU 4
Strange said SUA held this tournament to benefit student organizations and to help with its budgets. He also hopes to make this an annual event.
Dakota Strange, spirit coordinator in SUA, was happy to see a student organization win first place. The tournament was originally exclusive for student organizations, but because of the lack of teams, SUA opened it up to all students.
"It was a good showing from student organizations, and we received a lot of positive feedback," Strange said. "We want to continue events like this in the future. Whether its dodgeball or something else, we would like to see this continue to help student organizations who have smaller budgets."
nament for the Boys and Girls Club," Marello said. "We are giving the kids free t-shirts, so the money will be put to good use."
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2012 The University Daily Kansan
— Edited by Corinne Westeman
To learn about "Our Dangerous Universe" with Washburn astronomy professor Brian Thomas at 7:30 p.m. in Malott Hall. Be careful out there.
Today's Weather
Beautiful day with sunny skies and light winds between 5-10 mph
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Good day to wash the Trans Am.
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