Student-Managed Residences at Stanford University

Written by Janyce Prothro, Director of Student Management, 1991-1996

At Stanford, student residences are an integral part of the educational process. The Office of Residential Education, a division of the Office of the Vice Provost for Student Affairs, is responsible for developing the policies and programs affecting the intellectual, educational, and social activities; the quality of life and the staffing in all residences. The undergraduate residence system is a diverse one, housing a total of 5900 students in dormitories, row houses (including fraternities), suites, and apartments.

From the University's earliest days, some student residences-- and some student food services - have been managed by the students living in or near them. At present, there are 37 student-managed residences and 10 additional student-managed kitchens on the Stanford campus: the 36 houses on the Row, the East-Asian Studies Theme house (EAST) in Governor's Corner; the Kosher Co-op and four Dining Societies in Governor's Corner; and five Eating Clubs that serve Toyon Hall, on the East side of campus. (For simplicity's sake, the student-managed residences will be referred to as Row houses and the additional student-managed kitchens will be called Eating Clubs.) Row houses range in occupancy from 26 to 60 students, and each house elects at least three student managers who organize and oversee the management of the group's finances, meals, and housekeeping.

The Row, which houses some 1600 upperclass undergraduates and a few dozen graduate students, attracts students who are looking for independence, freedom, and the power to make decisions for themselves about how they will live from day to day. All Row houses are officially part of the Stanford residence system and as such, their residents are bound by all the same rules that apply to students living in dormitories. However, in these houses, unlike in dorms, the educational "program" entails, as an intrinsic part of its definition, enabling students to manage their own affairs with a high degree of autonomy and accountability.

Students are encouraged to have a proprietary interest in their homes (and kitchens), to resist simplistic and conformist thinking, to raise questions, and, to a reasonable degree, challenge authority. They are also held fully accountable - as individuals and as groups - when things go wrong. For example, if residents leave the door unlocked and someone comes in and damages or steals University property, residents are billed for the loss. The University has to a large extent given over the house and its contents to the care of its residents, and they are expected to exercise that responsibility effectively.

Strong and vibrant leadership qualities are developed in the students who take responsibility for managing their own houses. The financial manager of a self-op, for example, may be responsible for collecting, investing, and otherwise managing an annual house budget in excess of a quarter million dollars. The kitchen manager may have to supervise a temperamental (and usually quite a bit older) cook, and may end up having to discipline him or even terminate his employment. The house manager may have to determine what course of action to take with a house member who is not doing his fair share of the housework and is behind on his house bill only because he is having serious money difficulties and has to work outside the house for pay many hours a week. Student managers struggle with these and other important issues every day, and learn much from their efforts.

There are four different types of student-managed programs at Stanford: Self-ops, Semi-self-ops, Co-ops, and Eating Clubs. According to the current definitions, the self-op is a student-managed house where the cooking is done by a hired chef and the cleaning of all common areas (all areas except for student bedrooms) is done by students; the semi-self-op is a student-managed house where the common areas are cleaned by University custodial staff and the cooking is done by a hired chef; the co-op is a student-managed house where the students do all of their own cooking and cleaning; and the Eating Club is a student-managed kitchen with a professional chef serving a residential community adjacent to the dining areas.

Residential Education's Director of Student Management trains and advises approximately 160 student managers in the Row houses and Eating Clubs each year. Housing and Dining Services' Assistant Manager for Student Managed Kitchens and four Facilities Supervisors work with the students in maintaining safe, healthy, and well-maintained houses and kitchens.

The three key management positions in each house are house manager, kitchen manager, and financial manager. The house manager is responsible for the daily operations within each house, such as reporting and requesting needed repairs, making sure that the house is secure and free from health hazards, and creating a Supplemental House Agreement which spells out the responsibilities of being a resident of the house. The kitchen manager is responsible for hiring, creating a contract for and supervising the cook; ordering food; planning menus; and setting a food budget; in addition to ensuring that the kitchen is clean and all kitchen safety rules are understood and consistently followed by the residents of the house. The financial manager is responsible for setting a budget for the house which incorporates all expenses which a Row house will incur such as food, supplies, cook's salary and benefits, social events, etc. The financial manager is also responsible for billing and collecting the residents' house bills and maintaining a ledger system and bank accounts which accurately reflect all house income and expenses. The student-managed kitchens at Toyon and Governor's Corner have two general managers, and two to three club managers per 50-100 person club.

Stanford's support of the Row Houses and the student-managed kitchens demonstrates the University's desire to encourage growth through traditional and non-traditional avenues. The student-managed programs (or self-ops/co-ops as they are called by Stanford students and staff) are valued by students and staff alike for three major reasons: the sense of closely-knit community experienced by those who live and eat in Row houses and student-managed kitchens; the interpersonal and intrapersonal learning gained from holding a student management position; and the enormous level of satisfaction felt by student communities that are key decision-makers in all aspects of their house and kitchen management. Each spring a new group of managers is elected to each of the Row houses by the residents. Selection in the student-managed kitchens entails a lengthier application process. The managers are usually students who have lived in the house who are eager to contribute their experience and management skills.

Building Community

The managers' job, along with that of the Resident Assistant (RA), is to facilitate the building of a community in each Row house. A community is created when individuals share a common interest or goal. The most common interest or goal in a Row house is the residents' desire to live in a house that they can help tailor to their educational, social, and personal needs. A community also emerges when residents begin to feel like their house is their home and their housemates are part of an extended family. Group accountability and shared responsibility are often learned when organizational plans are tested. Two examples of this testing are when the house receives a University bill for house damage (defined as any repair beyond normal wear and tear) or when it becomes apparent to the majority of the residents that there is a small group of residents not sharing in housekeeping responsibilities. These issues, ideally, are discussed in a house meeting where everyone accepts ownership of the problem and works together toward resolution. In a self-op or co-op that is working well, everyone is responsible for establishing a sense of community and the RA and house managers are seen only as facilitators of that effort.

Group Responsibility

The size and structure of each Row house and Eating Club dictate that students must shoulder responsibilities - as individuals and as a group - that students don't have in the traditional residence hall where cooking and cleaning are done by University staff. Self-ops establish a kitchen and house cleaning schedule which requires that each resident volunteer for a daily, weekly, or quarterly shift. In some houses, the residents choose to use house funds to pay residents for house jobs. Each student contributes toward the order of the house, whether he pays a fellow resident for the work or does the work himself. The structure of the self-op and co-op also forces residents to interact more frequently and cooperatively with one another; hashing and house cleaning crews are rarely done individually.

Regular house meetings are vital in a self-op or co-op, for it is at these meetings that operational issues are raised and each resident is encouraged to offer input into house management issues. The house meeting is also an opportunity to express dissatisfaction with the way in which the house is being managed. For many residents this might be the first time they have had to express dissatisfaction in a public forum. Learning how to give and take constructive criticism is an essential skill for a successful manager or Row resident.

Each Row house is inspected by the University three to four times a month to ensure that health and safety standards are being met. If a house violates a health or safety standard more than once, the Facilities Supervisor will correct the situation and bill the house. The residence community, held financially responsible for what a few individuals failed to attend to during a house or kitchen cleaning crew, is motivated to take steps to ensure that in the future, residents do their jobs as they're supposed to. In an extreme case, the Director of Student Management and the Director of the Row would determine whether a house should continue to enjoy the privilege of being student-managed.

Management Responsibilities

Managers may occasionally find themselves in a position in which they are representing a minority opinion within the house or representing a University policy which is unfamiliar to residents. One example is the University smoking policy which prohibits smoking in or about any University buildings, including residences. The house manager is responsible for educating residents about the policy and ensuring that there is a clear understanding of the policy. The house manager must then decide what her course of action will be if, for example, a wing of the house repeatedly violates the policy.

Another managerial challenge is faced by the financial manager, who is responsible for collecting the board bill from each resident and who may find his position uncomfortable at times given the sensitivity that people have surrounding issues of money. The financial manager must find an approach for collecting board bills that will keep the house financially solvent but that will also be sensitive to the economic problems that students sometimes face.

Much as managers in the "real world," student managers are looked to for all the answers even when there may be another individual in the house who is more knowledgeable in a given area. Student managers may also bear the brunt of hard feelings when residents' expectations are not fully met, even when the problem is beyond the manager's control - as managers, they must learn to take the bad with the good. An added complication is that managers are full-time students and often are not receiving any compensation other than a single room in the house.

Decision-making Skills

Most of the decisions regarding the management of each house lies with the residents. Managers and other residents soon find that with each decision they make, however large or small, the costs and benefits need to be weighed. A common decision that houses must reach early on is how they will respond when residents fail to complete house jobs. Some houses find fining effective, while others avoid any actions which may be seen as punishment by one's peers.

The ability to analyze a situation and come to a conclusion based on the balance of costs and benefits is a skill that most successful managers develop. The decisions made in many of the student-managed kitchens and houses are ones that affect a whole community. For that reason, each member of the community is encouraged to weigh in with her opinion. Student managers have an added responsibility since they may sometimes find themselves in a position to have to explain or defend the reasoning behind a house decision to other residents or to University staff. In some student-managed residences, all decisions are reached by consensus, which means that everyone in the community must agree to accept the decision prior to its being implemented. In houses that use consensus as the only form of decision-making, there are annual discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of the consensus decision-making model, and whether or not the model should be used. In short, in some houses, the first decision that must be made is how decisions will be made.

Supervising the Cook

Each of the Row houses and student-managed kitchens, with the exception of nine co-ops, employs a cook. The cook is hired and supervised by the kitchen manager. Kitchen managers are required to create a contract between the house and the cook which spells out the terms of the cook's employment. The house, with the guidance of the kitchen manager, determines the cook's salary, benefits, number of meals served per week and other responsibilities as an employee of the house.

Many kitchen managers find that supervision of the cook is the most challenging of their duties. Since they are young students, this is often the first experience as supervisors they have had. An added complexity to the supervisory relationship is that the majority of the cooks on the Row are substantially older than the student managers and residents of each house or kitchen. This can place the kitchen manager in an awkward position, particularly when it comes to giving direction or evaluating the cook's performance. Kitchen managers must develop relationships with their cooks that allow them to convey expectations and let cooks know when those expectations are not being met. Kitchen managers learn from this experience the need for clear, effective communication and humane treatment of employees.

The contract is extremely important in outlining the terms of the cook's employment. The contract includes information such as salary, benefits, work schedule, contract renewal, and termination. The contract is beneficial to both parties since each is agreeing to a certain set of employment terms that the other must respect. Although the cook is employed by the student residence, the Director of Student Management may be involved as an advisor to the house in disputes between student managers and their cooks.

Kitchen managers have occasionally learned the hard way that careful checking of employer references is an essential step in the employment process. It is quite difficult to learn midway through an academic quarter that a cook has a felony record for forgery and theft from his previous employer. The cook wasn't asked, so he didn't tell. The manager is faced with a dilemma: do you keep the cook and accept the risk or do you fire the cook and try to find other ways to feed your residents until you can find a replacement? By informing new managers of these past complications the University through Residential Education ensures that not all of these lessons need to be learned the hard way. Row managers leave their student management jobs with tremendous supervisory experience which will be valuable in their future work lives.

Organizational Skills

A good manager will strike a balance among her academic work, management responsibilities, and other extracurricular activities. She will understand the importance that all three play in her life and learn how to prioritize and reprioritize, as needs shift, one over the other. The Row houses that have a tradition of being the most well-managed are those that year after year elect student managers who have organizational skills that exceed the average person's capability. Students who begin their management position with limited organizational skills quickly learn the importance of prioritizing their projects.

A financial manager must learn how to create and implement a budget that may exceed $250,000 each quarter. The implementation is the part that requires major organization - for example, the financial manager should know how much was spent on dairy products during the week of 10/1 and how that compares to the increase during the week of 11/1. If the financial manager is not keeping proper records, and is not tracking expenditures carefully, the house could be headed for financial ruin. House money could run out prior to the end of the quarter, which could mean no food and an extremely unhappy community.

Support Systems

Student managers have University resources to support them in their efforts. As each manager is elected in winter quarter and takes office in spring, he is required to attend a training session where he learns about health and safety, financial responsibility, facilities maintenance, and the important role he has been entrusted with. Training sessions are organized by the Director of Student Management and involve Housing Facilities and Dining Services staff as teachers. In addition, a County Health Inspector gives an annual overview of proper cleaning and food-handling techniques to the approximately 50 kitchen managers.

The staff who conduct the training sessions meet with the student managers as a group two other times during the academic year, once at the beginning of the academic year to cover opening procedures and to remind them of important policies and procedures that were presented during the spring session and again at the close of the academic year to cover closing procedures. Each manager learns that there is support in maintaining their student-managed programs from Residential Education and Housing and Dining Services. The Director of Student Management advises student-managed houses on an ongoing basis to address leadership and management problems, and assists them in pursuing efficient, financially stable, and democratically run operations. The Director of Student Management is also responsible each year for the creation and distribution to each manager of the "Guidelines for Student-Managed Residences" manual and the Student Manager Agreement, a contract that each manager signs which spells out the expectations of the kitchen, financial, or house manager jobs.

The Assistant Manager for Dining Services ensures that student-managed kitchens are clean and free of health and safety hazards by doing bi-weekly kitchen inspections which give the kitchen manager feedback about how the kitchen is being run. Facilities Supervisors fulfill a similar function for the 37 house managers. They inspect each house to ensure that it is clean and free of health and safety hazards. The Assistant Manager and the Facilities Supervisors are the staff members who are responsible for repairs and maintenance in student-managed kitchens and houses. When work is required in the house or kitchen, the house or kitchen manager is responsible for conveying the problem to the appropriate staff member. There are no charges to student-managed houses and kitchens when maintenance or repair work can be attributed to normal wear and tear. Any other maintenance or repair work is charged to the house.

Important Documents

The student-managed communities have considerable freedom in determining how their houses will run. The Guidelines Manual provides the managers guidelines for managing a healthy, safe, and financially solvent program. Training from the previous student manager and University staff provides the incoming manager with the information that she will need to successfully complete a management term. If the previous manager has provided little guidance, the Director of Student Management takes a more active role in supporting the new manager.

To help ensure that the residents and employees of each student-managed program understand their roles and responsibilities, each house is required to provide a copy of its Supplemental House Agreement, budget, and cook's contract to the Director of Student Management. The Supplemental House Agreement spells out the terms and conditions of living in a self-op or co-op. It is unique to each house and supplements the University's Residence Agreement and the Fraternity Housing Agreement. Each resident is required to sign this agreement immediately following Rush and the Housing Draw, or as they take occupancy. House managers are urged to share a copy of the Supplemental House Agreement with potential residents at Rush and pre-Draw informational meetings. It is important for residents to know, for example, that they will be responsible for a portion of the cooking or cleaning, and that their registration can be placed on hold for failure to pay a house bill.

The house budget, available to all residents, determines what the actual income and expenses are for a given house. It provides residents with an understanding of what they are paying for. It also gives the Financial Manager a guide in spending throughout the quarter and academic year. Budget figures are generally derived from previous house budgets with input from the Director of Student Management. Expenditures vary from house to house depending on such things as nutritional preferences (vegetarians, vegans, carnivores), number of people in the house, cook's salary, how many entrees are prepared and a number of other variables. The Financial Manager is encouraged to solicit input from residents about the budget and most are extremely open to suggestions.

The cook's contract, as discussed previously, is very important in outlining the terms of the cook's employment. The contract is a mutually beneficial document which has the final word in cook/kitchen manager disputes.

The Director of Student Management

(This title was changed to Assistant Director for Student Management in Sept. 1996)

Unlike the Facilities Supervisors and the Assistant Manager for Dining Services who are specialists who deal explicitly with the facility, the Director of Student Management is a student development program generalist whose work falls into three basic categories: preventive/informative, reactive, and maintenance.

The training that is done for the managers when they are newly elected and during the opening and closing of the academic year is preventive work, owing to the nature of the information shared. Topics covered in the training include: the role of the Row Office and Housing and Dining Services staff, responsibilities of each manager, cleaning standards, health and safety, hashing, work crews, house agreements, general maintenance, communication, group responsibility, inspections, and financial responsibility. The managers who will prove to be successful have a clear understanding of their role in the house and make positive contributions to the training meetings. Collecting the Supplemental House Agreement, budget, and cook's contract is also considered a preventive measure. Each of these documents clarifies the rights and responsibilities of an individual or group and seeks to avoid misunderstanding and conflict at a number of different levels within the residence or kitchen. As time permits, the Director will see student managers who are doing extremely well - to encourage them to keep up the good work - or who are doing a poor job, to caution and offer guidance for making corrections.

The most challenging work that the Director does is responding to problems that arise in the student-managed program. Recent examples include various student requests for exemptions or reductions of the house board bill when they have signed a contract for the full amount; a cook using food and kitchen supplies for her catering business without the consent of the student managers; student managers feeling a Resident Fellow was overstepping his authority in making decisions for the house; a student-managed program whose continued existence was in question; the potential loss of a student-managed fraternity which was having difficulty filling the house with members; the resignation of a financial manager who was suspected of embezzlement; the threat of a lawsuit by a cook whose contract was not renewed by the kitchen manager; and the delayed opening of a newly-renovated student-managed residence.

The "maintenance" portion of the Director's job is in some ways the most important aspect. The relationships that exist between the Director and the student managers strengthen the ties among students, staff, and the University. The Director spends much of her time checking in with managers. This is the informal way in which the Director and manager let each other know what's going on in the house or how a certain problem was resolved, or to share their latest management success. It is often true that the quality of the relationship between the Director and the manager affects how other house issues will be handled. Does the Director feel confident in the manager's work and does the manager trust the Director's advice? When the Director and manager know and trust each other all other interactions come much easier, even in a crisis situation.

In order for student-managed programs to be successful, there must be a mutual understanding between the Director and the student managers. The Director is an educator who needs to foster opportunities for the managers and their residents to learn from all of their experiences and to exercise as much autonomy as reasonably possible. The students' role is to understand that their autonomy comes with accountability.

Student-managed houses and kitchens afford several hundred Stanford students each year valuable learning experiences. By design, these students accept - and bear the consequences of accepting - significant responsibility for determining the quality and content of their own residential experience, and for managing their own individual and collective lives. The lessons they learn are rich and varied, and will serve them well in their lives beyond Stanford.

Janyce Prothro 1/95