Oberlin Student Cooperative Association

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OSCA, or the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, is a 2.4 million dollar non-profit corporation that feeds 630 and houses 175 Oberlin College students. It is located in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, and is independent from but closely tied to Oberlin College. OSCA is the fourth-largest student cooperative in North America. It by far the biggest per-capita of any student coop, considering that Oberlin College has approximately 2700 students.

1 Facilities
2 Operations
3 Principles
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Facilities

OSCA operates four coops with housing and dining facilities: Keep, Tank, Old Barrows, and Harkness. It also has five dining-only co-ops: Fairchild Co-op, Pyle Inn Co-op, Kosher Halal Co-op, Third World Co-op, and the Brown Bag Co-op. All of these coops are located inside of Oberlin College-owned buildings.

[edit] Operations

OSCA pays rent to the College for use of its buildings. In exchange, it operates almost completely autonomously. Student members vote by OSCA's consensus process on all rules, both for the system as a whole and its individual housing and dining coops. Members also implement and enforce virtually all decisions.

OSCA employs one full-time employee, a Financial Manager, and two part-time employees, the Office Intern and the Food Safety Coordinator. OSCA members fill all other positions within the co-ops. For example, the President of OSCA, Publications Coordinator, head cook, and kitchen prep are all positions filled by Oberlin student members of OSCA. In addition, every member of OSCA must clean up after one meal a week.

Every spring, OSCA members vote for the corporation's officers for the next year. These officers, along with the 2 Operations Managers, the 2 Cleanliness and Maintenance Coordinators, the Education Coordinator, the Financial Manager, the Office Intern, the Food Safety Coordinator and the OSCA/Oberlin College Liaison make up the General Management Team, or the GMT. The GMT deals with the day-to-day operations of the co-ops. This body along with the Accessibilities Coordinators, two representatives from every member co-op, and any other interested members makes up the Board of Directors. 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.^[1]

[edit] Principles

From OSCA's web site:

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.

These principles are:

Open membership

Democratic control

Limited return, if any, on equity capital

Distribution of economic savings

Education of members

Cooperation among cooperatives

Political nonpartisanship