88- The Michigan Daily - Wtteo t4. - Thursday, September 28, 1995

'U' students set up camp within the intercooporative community
From 'vegetarian' to 'smoke free,' campus co-ops provide alternative housing

By Egni Staros
For the Daily~
How would you like to own your
own place, decide how it's run and
help manage it? And all this at com-
paratively the lowest price in town?
Tliat's what cooperative living is
all about. About 600 University stu-
dents live in 21 cooperative houses
(co-gps) on campus.
When you live in a co-op, "you're
joining acommunity, making living com-
fortable and affordable," said Amy Clark,
member services director at the Inter-
Coolperative Council (ICC). The Univer-
sity alum, now a Wayne State graduate
studrit, lives in a co-op and' works full-
time-at the ICC.
Co-ops are generally considered the
least expensive form ofhousing. Doubles
andsingles runaround $360permonth on
Centfal Campus (less in summer and
spring), and on North Campus singles
rangeabout $100 more. In addition, each
resident is required to put in four hours of
work per week for the ICC.
The monthly payment includes a $100
unlimited meal and utilities contract. A
one-time $75 membership fee, a $75
commitment fee towards the April pay-
mencand a redeemable $200 worth of
menbership shares are also assessed
with'the lease.
"Technically it's not rent, it's 'mem-
ber charges,' because you own a small
part of the co-op," said first-year grad
student Deborah Schultz, an officernomi-
nee in O'Keefe Co-op on North Campus.
"You sign a co-ownership agreement

with everyone. There's no evil landlord,"
Clark remarked. "It's always $200 less a
month than the residence halls."
Contracts can be made for two, four
and eight months. "The University kicks
you out over certain periods (in dorms).
At co-ops you can stay all year-round,"
Clark said.
"You'd pay this much in an apartment,
not including food," said Engineering
senior Jason Breslau, president of Luther
Co-op on Hill Street. "And we fix our-
selves healthy meals."
Everything needed to keep the house
running is done by students for their four
hours' contribution--cooking, cleaning,
maintenance, office work - nearly any-
thing.
"There's astructureto it (the work). No
one ends up doing everything," Clark
said.
Students can serve in various ad-
ministrative positions, such as house
manager, maintenance manager and-
financial coordinator. "It makes for a
great resume," Clark said. "And work-
ing together brings the house to-
gether."
Work holiday is a once-a-semester
event each co-op held this month when
they set aside a day to clean or other-
wise improve their building. At
Luther, "We scoured the house,"
Breslau explained. "Everyone works
and sweats together." In the evening,
they party.
Each house has a constitution,
which sets up general procedures,
and elects officers like treasurer, sec-

retary, etc., to run house meetings.
The president of each house is its
representative and voter on the ICC
Board.
Clark describes the ICC as a "de-
mocracy." Every co-op member has a
vote in house and ICC issues. "It's
good, but it's a slow process," Schultz
said.
Breslau described it as a feeling of
"empowerment."
"If we have a problem we just deal
with it."
The smallest co-op is Ruths', which
has 12 residents, and the largest has
85. Many rooms are doubles; there
are a few singles (plenty on North
Campus) and fewer triples. Most
houses have laundry facilities, dining
rooms, kitchens, lounges, rec rooms,
study rooms, backyards and other
common areas.
"Each house varies in size and ap-
pearance," Clark said.
Bedroom type and size also vary from
room to room and house to house, and
come cable-ready with a bed, dresser,
closet and desk. Residents are always
free to make improvements on their
rooms.
Each house offers a smorgasbord of
unique amenities. A couple have pi-
anos, porch swings, entertainment sys-
tems, parking, guest rooms, games, cov-
ered bike storage, hardwood floors,
exercise equipment, computers, athletic
courts, pop machines, etc. Some houses
allow cats and caged pets.
Many co-ops are smoke-free.'*Black
Elk and Muriel Lester are vegetarian co-
ops. Eugene V. Debs,MinniesandStevens
Co-ops do not provide board, so residents
go to a nearby co-op to eat.
The two apartment houses are Kawaga
and Coretta Scott King (with private kitch-
ens). Priority for these houses is given to
ICC seniority. All co-ops are within a 10-
minute walk of Central Campus, except
for those on North Campus.
"It's a very different atmosphere (on
North Campus)," Clark said. "There are
moregraduate and international students."
The large, wrap-around, modemrapart-
ment-house-like building has about 150
people. It's divided into two co-ops,
O'Keefe and Renaissance. "Here it's not
too rowdy," Schultz said. "The average
age is 27."
"And your housemates are also your
friends," Schultz added.
Breslau moved in because he "decided
it was a good time. It's an instant social
life."
"I met a lot of people I would not
normally meet and learned from their
different experience," he said. Re-
nowned co-op parties attract othermem-1

bers and non-members.
"You'll run into people who don't
like it," Clark said. "Some don't like
their roommate, think the house is too
loud or have different standards of clean-
liness."
Breslau said that some members are
anti-social, form politicking cliques or
don't want to cooperate with others.
"But generally people are very open,"
he said.
Throughout the co-ops last year, the
average member was 23 years old -
ranging from 17 to 56.
"We don't recruit freshmen but we
welcome them. We had more this year
because of the University housing
crunch," Clark said. Many students join
their sophomore year and stay indefi-

nitely, and 63 percent of the member-
ship are undergraduates.
Overall co-op membership has
"steadily grown since 1932," Clark
noted. Although most members are
University students, some attend other
schools and must be voted in by each
house.
Residents are also "a part of his-
tory," Clark said. "It's an on-going
movement." The ICC has a library
about the history of nationwide coop-
eratives and socialism. In 1932 gradu-
ate students opened the first co-op,
called the Michigan Socialist Club.
The ICC was founded in 1944.
The main issue facing the ICC to-
day is the impending relocation of
their office in the Michigan Union.

The University provides free space to
student organizations, but during
renovations this year all student of-
fices will have to evacuate. Accord-
ing to Clark, there is currently no
alternate viable office space for the
year-long construction.
Also, the ICC is trying to get the tax
rate on their buildings lowered. "As
an owner-occupied dwelling, we
should have a lower rate," Clark said.
And this summer members voted to
purchase a bankrupt fraternity house
for 30 people. "Every three years we
buy a house and (membership) jumps
up."
"There's a continuing interest in
co-op living and it probably will con-
tinue to grow."

Opera star Ceciia Bartoli to hit
high note at Hill Auditorium

By Emily Lambert
Daily Fine Arts Editor
Let"s imagine that your sweetheart
or, say, your mother, is near death and
has only one request: to hear Cecilia
Bartoli's recital tomorrow night in
Hill Auditorium. Now, let's pretend
that you have just one ticket to this
concert. What do you do?
Consider yourself lucky.
Cecilia Bartoli's recital officially
sold out the second day individual
tickets were available. The last 20
tickets in the house, set aside for the
Musical Society's half price ticket
sale, were nabbed at 10 a.m. sharp.
Fifteen and a half hours before the
sale's start, students were camping
out on the steps of Hill Auditorium.
Does this situation sound familiar?
Hockey comes to mind, but Bartoli is
an opera singer. Not the most acces-
sible of art forms, opera often con-

Cecilia Bartoll

Where: Hill Auditorium
When: Friday, Sept. 29, 8 p.m.
Tickets are sold out.
jures up an inaccurate but persistent
stereotype of busty women with lacy
fans, whose shrieks crack every wine
glass within a ten mile radius of the
production. So does the appeal of
Cecilia Bartoli's operatic recital lie
more in Cecilia than in opera? This
would be true only if it was possible
to separate one from the other.
In Bartoli's hometown of Rome,
the composer Verdi is a national hero.

Children are raised on Puccini and
pasta. Italy is opera and Cecilia is
Italy. As one Italian magazine wrote,
"It is safe to say that La Bartoli's
musical sparkle and vibrancy draw
from the energy of the eternal city."
Both of Bartoli's parents were opera
singers. Cecilia's only voice teacher
was her mother, Silvana Bazzoni
Bartoli made her operatic debut at age
nine as the off-stage shepherd in "Tosca"
at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Be-
fore pursuing serious musical studies at
age 17, Bartoli was sidetracked by Fla-
menco dancing.
An appearance on an Italian televi-
sion variety show helped boost
Bartoli's career. Within one year, she
had signed an exclusive contract with
Decca/London records. What Bartoli
has done since is unbelievable.
At age 29, the mezzo-soprano has
performed to sold-out audiences on
the world's most prestigious stages.
She had five recordings simulta-
neously among the top 15 best selling
classical albums on the Billboard
charts during 1993. Bartoli sold out
Lincoln Center's Avery Fischer Hall
three times within one week and was
invited to open a Carnegie Hall sea-
son. She will make her much antici-
pated Metropolitan Opera debut next
year as Despina in Mozart's "Cosi
Fan Tutte." Hers is a career aspiring
young divas dream about.
Forty-two hundred people bought
tickets to Bartoli's Ann Arbor recital.
Another 4,200 wanted to buy tickets.
The situation would be a scalper's
heaven were it not for the impossibil-
ity of luring fans away from their
tickets. Those little slips of paper are
good as gold, or better. Who wants
gold when they could hear Cecilia
instead?
The many admirers who attended
Bartoli's packed Ann Arbor debut two
years ago swear to the beauty of her
young voice. Its gorgeous and seam-
less tone has floored audiences world-
wide. If you miss this opportunity to
hear Bartoli's mesmerizing music,
be easier to come by than future op-
portunities, though, as Cecilia Bartoli
is booked internationally past the year
2000.
If you are lucky enough to have a
ticket,"do the right thing. Bring your
sweetie balloons and buy your mom a F
CD. Then, by all means, hear Cecilia.,
You won't be sorry.

Co-op residents take time out to chat on their front porch.



.....- .........-.--....- . -- -...-. - m.. 3
Ir
SKAE I Ell
YOSTARENA PUBLIC SKATiNG -7 DAYS AWEEK1
Mon. -Fri. 12-12:50pm BIGGEST
Thur. 8 -9:50 pm STUDENT
Sat. tsseonungoo 2 - 3:50 pm NGHT!
(noession dunnghockey) 7 - 8:50 pm EVERYONE'S I
AT POST
Sun. 2-3:50 pm1
We have HUNDREDS of skates for rent!
Admission:
Stulents/Youth $3I IUAUU
Ul Staff $350
Acts $4 CLIP & SAVE
b.m. . imnm -- - - - - -.

C

QUALITY DRY CLEANING
& SHIRT SERVICE
332 Maynard
(Across from Nickels Arcade)
668-6335

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pilatn
Alectrrg

Mzos a
Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoil beautiful woman, beautiful voice.


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