Exploring Cooperative Histories from Community Journals

Redesigning the Synergy Community Journal Archive

Abstract

The Synergy Cooperative at Stanford University houses a collection of community diaries that document the daily lives of student residents for almost three decades. The "House Journal" has played a multiplicity of roles as a cultural artifact. It has been a medium for: debate, confession, recipes, illustrations, meeting minutes, poetry, surveys, random musings, anonymous grievances, signed grievances, drug trips, news clippings, party flyers and more. In any given year, the House Journal reflects the events, decisions, humor, creativity, beliefs and opinions of the individuals comprising the Synergy Cooperative community. It is a revered cultural artifact and a locus of community participation in terms of reading and contribution. When the academic year is over, the Journal becomes part of the House Journal archive, shelved in a glass case in the computer cluster, at the back of Synergy House. While a past Journal may be occasionally read by Synergy alumni who are still part of the community-at-large, Journals older than a few years are rarely, if ever, opened after their authors have moved away.

A community of practice depends heavily on cultural transmission between experienced/central participants and new/peripheral participants. Due to its institutional context, the Synergy Cooperative is a community with a constantly disappearing center. Thus it is important that new participants be easily able to learn about the community's culture and history. The House Journal Archive is the sole learning space dedicated to this purpose. This proposal suggests ways of altering and augmenting the House Journal archive to make it a space more amenable to learning about Synergy history and history of the counterculture at Stanford University.

Observations & Interview Notes

Accessibility

Journals are accessible but invisible.

• "I like how anyone can read the journals anytime. But no one reads the old journals because they're out of sight."
• "The current and last year's journal get a lot of attention on a daily basis, partly because they live on the dining room table in constant sight."
• "The archive boxes are blank and don't tell you what's inside."

Preservation

Journals are historic documents, some almost 30 years old and quite frail.

• "I like reading the old journals but I feel bad about contributing to their deterioration. The old ones are so delicate."

Privacy

Journals contain sensitive, even incriminating, information about named individuals in a private community.

• "Many of the entries are not G-rated. There's a lot of sex, drugs and rock n' roll from the late 1970s and some of these people probably went on to prestigious careers."
• "If you wanted to dig up dirt on alumni you would read the old journals."

Stanford History

Journals are primary source material for the history of the counterculture and cooperative living at Stanford University.

• "I love reading the oldest journals -- it's like a window to past mayhem. It's wonderful to see how crazy and loose people were then, but also how they wrestled with a lot of the same issues as we do today."

Missed Opportunities for Learning

A sense of shared culture is critical to the health of a cooperative living organization where participation depends so much on individual commitment to community values and decisions. At the Synergy Cooperative at Stanford University, the problem of how to promote a sense of shared culture is difficult because the resident turnover rate each academic year is so large. There are only two links between the present and the past for creating cultural continuity: (1) residents who return to Synergy House as management staff, eating associates or repeat residents, (2) the House Journal archive.

What can people learn from the House Journals?

• Personal Sense of History
  • Resident lives are documented. Opportunity to self-reflect, learn about others' inner selves or social structures within the community
• Community Sense of History
  • New residents can participate more fully in community culture if given historical context.
• Stanford Sense of History
  • Primary sources about the counter-culture at Stanford University in the 1970s and 1980s.
  • Primary sources about cooperative living in University Housing
    • gardening, earthquake restoration, consensus

Redesign Proposal

1. Place recent House Journals in common areas
   • These are not as delicate as the old ones. They will stimulate interest and resonate more closely with current house culture.
2. Scan "safe" yet evocative excerpts from the pre-Loma Prieta Earthquake era
   • This would be a kind of "best of" retrospective from each year in the Journals, appropriately anonymized.
3. Gather and frame historical context from news clippings, interviews, etc.
   • We would interview residents from each era to collect their commentary on the retrospective, and augment this with news events from the time.
4. Create a printed book of these excerpts + commentary
   • The book becomes index into the original documents for those who wish to delve deeper. It also reduces wear and tear on the originals by fulfilling 90% of the browsing need.
5. Print and publish several copies of this book and distribute in common areas
   • We make it trivial to access the Synergy Cooperative's complete written history.
6. Put one in the Stanford Library
   • Synergy Cooperative history becomes available to Stanford scholars and archivists.
7. Create a browseable online version of the book for Stanford and the world
   • Synergy Cooperative history becomes available to those interested in history of the counterculture and cooperative living on university campuses.

Learning Goal

• Cultural history of Synergy, Stanford, World
• Cultural evolution
• Stanford/U.S. history told in student voices

Audiences & Stakeholders

• residents, prospective residents, alumni, Stanford archivists

Assessment

• Create opportunities to call out excerpts from the House Journal book
• Count frequency of references to Journal entries during weekly house meetings
• Interview residents about knowledge of community history at start and end of academic year

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the following people for interviews and/or observations: Alana Kinrich, Darcy McRose, Michael Huang, Drew Peterson, Wes Herman, Chris Proctor, Soo-Rae Hong, Rahul Kanakia, Ariel Ma'ayan, Ayla Nereo, Monica Sircar, Bryn Williams.

References

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Chapter 1).

Rogoff, B. (1994). Developing understanding of the idea of communities of learners. Mind, Culture and Activity, 1, 209-229.

Rogoff, B. (2003). The Cultural Nature of Human Development, Pp 37 - 62.

Markoff, J. (2005). What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer. New York: Viking Adult.

Turner, F. (2006). From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Presentation

• 30 second pitch: highlight most important point from each major section.