Granola and Herbs, Hold the Bell Towers

At first glance, the large Victorian house on Sacramento St. looks like a typical Cambridge residence, but something about it seems a bit out of the ordinary.

A sign above the porch proclaims, "Center For High Energy Metaphysics." And when you enter, another sign above the entrance to the dining room reads, "Don't spit in the soup--we've all got to eat."

Welcome to the Dudley Co-op, (officially called the Harvard Co-operative) where undergraduates trade chandeliered dining halls and masters' teas for a slightly more laid-back housing experience.

"We can tan nude," says Lisa S. Bromer '88-'91, a Dudley Co-op resident, "and...I mean look at this, my plants are blooming that I planted last year."

"We have cats, too," she adds.

Students who live in the Dudley Co-op or the Jordan J Co-op, the University's other co-operative living option, say their housing choice may give them a little more freedom, but it also demands more time.

Living in the co-ops means sharing the responsibilities for food-shopping, cooking and cleaning. Students perform about four to six hours of household chores each week in order to accumulate the week's required number of brownie points.

"The essential difference is that when you go home to a room in a house, you're going home to a dorm room...here, you come home to a big family...a pile of dishes you have to do--it's a little more to come home too," says Charles O. Redditt '90-'91, who lives in Dudley.

Approximately 35 students live in the Dudley Co-op, and 15 others lodge in Jordan for about half the board fee paid by house residents. According to Leo Cabranes-Grant, a resident tutor in Jordan, each co-op is a half-way house, a middle ground between "life in the real world" and a Harvard house.

"I used to be attached to Eliot House and it is very, very different from Eliot House," says Caroline M. Cowie, the Dudley resident tutor. "It's a lot less luxurious life, but it is as well looked after."

Students say the extra time they invest in co-op chores may sound like a burden, but "when you consider the time you spend goofing off, it's really not a terrible amount of time," says Rachel M. Safman '91 of Jordan.

And Eric P. Trueheart '91-'92, who also lives in Jordan, says he likes cooking his own food--which, he admits, he had never done before coming to the co-op.

All the board fees paid by co-op residents go into a collective fund which pays for the co-op's food. While the shopping list tries to accommodate students' varied tastes, "if you craved something extravagant like marinated herring, which no one else liked, we would probably ask you to buy it yourself," Safman says.

Students also say they like the distance co-op life puts between them and the administration.

"It doesn't feel institutional," says Misha X. Glouberman '90-'91. "There aren't all these university officials running around after you."

Like the Harvard houses, which have their own individual reputations, the co-ops have been known to attract a certain type of person. Most of the stereotypes held by students about co-op life are generally tied to the Dudley Co-op, which is farther away from the Square.

Built in 1958 as off-campus housing, Dudley in the 1960s and 1970s quickly developed a reputation as a commune for some of the more radical students at Harvard. And this image--like many of the students--has lingered.

Even today, the Dudley Co-op is considered a haven for students with far left-leaning political views, a sort of time machine transporting the granola crowd back to the '60s.

Dudley residents, however, shy away from the political labels that have been stuck on the co-op over the years.

"Someone suggested to my friend that she shouldn't move in unless she was a lesbian-separatist-drug-dealer," says Bromer. "That's just ridiculous."

It is true that Dudley has lost some of its Woodstock appeal. The murals which covered the house in the co-op's early years have been painted over, and the nude woman that used to grace the bathroom wall has been replaced with an abstract design.

But the shrine to Karl Marx still guards the stairway to the third floor, and urges "Workers of the world unite" in 14 different languages.

And the co-op is still politically conscious about other issues. In tune with its concern for the environment, Deadly also has its own garden plot and compost heap, right next door. "We grow our own flowers, vegetables and other herbs," says Broker.

In contrast to this more bohemian image, life in the Jordan Co-op is not all that different from life on campus, except that its residents make their own granola.

In fact, Jordan, located across the street from the Radcliffe Quad, is considered on-campus living. The co-op's three buildings were constructed in the 1960s, but over the years interest in the communal lifestyle has dwindled.

Now the 15 residents of the co-op occupy only one of the three original buildings. The other two three-story, stocky cement structures are used for overflow housing.

Although Jordan is technically on-campus, while Deadly is off, residents in both co-ops agree that there are not really many differences between the two--except for aesthetics. "I didn't want to live in the Jordan Co-ops because I don't like the architecture there," says Redoubt.

Although students say it is impossible to generalize about the people who live in the co-ops in 1990, most of the residents have something in common--they have taken time off from Harvard.

Residents say the decision to take a leave of absence from school made choosing the co-op housing option easier. After living away from campus, students don't feel like returning to the housing system, Bromer says.

"The rhythm of running a household myself was pretty much a part of the rhythm of my life when I came back to Harvard," Bromer says.

And Glouberman, also a Dudley resident, says he was "looking forward to coming back to school, but not really looking forward to going back to the houses" when he returned to Harvard.

Some students, whose friends had graduated while they were on leaves from Harvard, say they chose to lodge in the co-ops because it offered them a better chance to make closer friends than they would have had in their old houses.

House life might provide students with the opportunity to interact with more students, "but how well do you really know them?" asks Jessie Williams '89-'92, who lives in Jordan.

Although Harvard is known for touting its house system, Assistant Dean of Housing Thomas A. Dingman admits the co-ops provide "more of a sense of family than a house can provide."

And Safman points out that, "Living at the co-op, you're living with people, not just among people."

However, some residents do say that the closeness of co-op life is not always an asset. "With the number of people we have, there isn't a lot of privacy." Cowie says about the Dudley Co-op.

Students are frequently "overwhelmed with the possibilities for socializing," she says. The biggest problem facing students who choose to live in the co-op is the adjustment to close quarters, she adds.

But the "smallness is crucial," says Michael A. Sabin '90 of Jordan. "The nature of the situation is to keep it small so it is personal."

Although co-op residents comprise less than I percent of the undergraduate student body, those who live there say there is rarely a shortage of newcomers waiting to try the communal life. "We don't advertise very much because we haven't really got the space," Redditt says.

Jordan, however, which is losing many of its current students to graduation, is trying actively to recruit new residents, Cabranes-Grant says. "The population is obviously down from the all-time high," he says.

Both Jordan and Dudley have invited first-year students, who filled out their housing choices last week, to visit this month, although first-year students are usually advised to live in a Harvard house before applying to one of the co-ops.

"Most students choose big houses, but some students find that they must do something different," Cabranes-Grant says.

As Williams puts it, "Most people here are pretty impervious to bell towers, anyway."