The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News April 28, 2006

Off the Cuff: Caleb Baker
 

 

As president of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, College senior Caleb Baker helps lead the student-run organization that houses 160 college students and feeds an additional 470. His most recent challenge has been contending with Pyle Inn’s oven hood problem. In this week’s Off the Cuff, Baker talks about his time in OSCA and the challenges and joys of his role as president.

How long have you been involved with OSCA?
Three years. I wasn’t involved with OSCA my freshman year – I had decided to wait and see what I thought about it. I was living above the Fairchild Co-op and I had a terrible experience with vegan pizza my first week living there. After that, I vowed never to be in OSCA. I was very anti-co-op.

You obviously had a change of heart. What caused it?
There was a group of rambunctious guys that lived in Fairkid and liked to trash the building when they got drunk, and I didn’t like the fact that the custodial staff had to clean up after them. I liked the idea of co-opers taking responsibility for themselves. Also, I had a major crush on a girl who lived in Keep at the time.

In what OSCA co-ops have you lived in and eaten in?
I don’t have a lot of OSCA diversity. I’ve been in Keep the whole time. We have a disturbing relationship. When I get drunk I’ll sometimes talk about the building. It’s very embarrassing.

How did you decide to run for the position of All-OSCA president?
I was the Sexual Offense Policy Advocate last year, and at that point I had no ambitions to do the president gig — I wanted to be SOPA for another year. Then, I got really involved in making policy in OSCA, saw that [through the] end of things and started working a lot with the board of directors. When people started advertising to run for president, I thought that might be cool. Also, the last president [senior Kathleen Tierney] was really cool.

What is your favorite aspect of OSCA?
The coolest part of OSCA — and sometimes it’s a little upsetting, because it’s so big that people don’t see the other cool parts of OSCA — is the lower cost to students and the way it makes Oberlin more accessible to low-income students.

What do you perceive as OSCA’s biggest problem?
OSCA’s biggest problem has always been the retention of skills — you have to re-teach the history every time, re-teach the same skills every time. Sometimes that can be tiresome. Still, I went to the North American Students of Co-operation conference this year, and it was impressive how on top of its stuff OSCA is in comparison to other co-ops.

What do you see as your biggest accomplishment as OSCA president?
Just keeping it together — it’s a huge operation and even if nothing actually changed while I was president, I’d still be really proud. There are things that OSCA is working on and needs to continue to work on. Access to low-income students and people of color is a big one. Sometimes there’s been resistance about co-ops providing education to its members about these issues. I think the biggest challenge right now is keeping OSCA going — there’s the problem of what will happen to Pyle Inn next year. With the College raising costs of living for students, the tools OSCA provides are becoming more and more essential, but also more and more difficult to provide.
 
 

   

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