OSCA, or the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, is a 2.7 million dollar non-profit corporation that feeds 615 and houses 174 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.
Facilities[]
OSCA operates four coops with housing and dining facilities: Keep, Tank, Old Barrows, and Harkness. It also has four dining-only co-ops: Brown Bag Co-op, Fairchild Co-op, Pyle Inn Co-op, and Third World Co-op. All of these coops are located inside of Oberlin College-owned buildings.
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 three full-time employee, a Business Coordinator, Financial Manager, Food Safety Advisor, and one part-time employee, the Office Assistant. OSCA members fill all other positions within the co-ops. For example, the President of OSCA, 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 4 Officers, along with 2 Operations Managers, 2 Cleanliness and Maintenance Coordinators, Education Coordinator, Business Coordinator, Financial Manager, Food Safety Advisor, and Office Assistant make up the General Management Team, or the GMT. The GMT deals with the day-to-day operations of the co-ops. The Officers and two representatives from every member co-op make up the Board of Directors. [1]
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
References[]
- ↑ eds. Emma Blose, Rachel Marcus, Seitan, pg 26. OSCA Publications, November 2003.