A peek behind the walls of Dexter M. Ferry House

20 students explore communal campus living each semester

Sarah Brown Life Editor

While some college students balk at the idea of cooperative-style living, the 20 residents of the Dexter M. Ferry House have embraced the challenge of meshing their domestic lives with those of others.

Ferry House, founded in 1951, was intended to be a space for cooperative living and was designed with those considerations in mind by Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer.

Cooperative living has been going on at Vassar for many years. One of the first co-ops was housed in Blodgett (which is why the Sociology Department has a bathtub). Ferry hasn’t always been vegetarian/vegan, however, and for a while the College used it as a way for low-income students to save money. Ferry residents have always cooked and cleaned the building themselves, except during the 2002-2003 school year, when Ferry was used as a dorm in order to accommodate more students during the Jewett House renovation.

Recently, Ferry residents have become concerned about increasing campus awareness of Ferry and its role in the community. In many ways, Ferry is already open to the school: its glass-covered walls allow sun to infuse the building with light and offer an illuminating peek into the house, and a standard V-card is all that is required to enter the house.

Like all Ferry House residents, Hannah Mason ’07 has a semester-long house job; she is the bread-baker, which entails baking bread three times a week for the house. As she kneaded ground flax seeds into loaves of whole-wheat bread, Mason explained that shared responsibility of chores is one of the fundamental elements of communal living. Cooking, cleaning and grocery-shopping, tedious tasks that are often intentionally avoided by the average dorm-dweller on a meal plan, are accomplished through a rotation system.

In order to ensure that the house runs smoothly, mandatory consensus-style house meetings are held every Sunday to discuss the allocation of responsibilities and other items of business.

“To make co-op living work, we do have to spend a lot of time together,” said Mason.

The casual interactions around the house and shared sense of responsibility are part of what makes Ferry unique. House members commit to collaborating with their 19 other housemates, with the understanding that the benefits of communal living do not always come easily.

“Listening to everyone’s opinion and reaching consensus can be a tough thing,” said Mason. “Everything we do here is an experiment.”

In order to live in Ferry, students must apply through the Office of Residential Life. At the end of each semester, all applications for the following semester are read anonymously by each house member.

An acceptance basically means that the residents affirm that the applicant would fit in well with Ferry’s unique community-style of living, entailing that s/he has received a favorable vote from at least two-thirds of the house.

While it is relatively easy to get accepted to Ferry, it is much harder to get a spot in the house. After an application has been accepted, the student is put on a waitlist, and any spots not filled by residents wishing to carry over from the previous term are filled lottery-style based on this waitlist.

Once admitted into Ferry, residents are guaranteed a spot for the next semester, and if they go abroad, they are offered a spot upon their return. At the beginning of the semester old and new residents attend a retreat to become acquainted. This year’s was held in Minnewaska, located outside of New Paltz. Because the cooperative lifestyle is a complex process, Ferry seeks to keep a number of people from semester to semester who know how the house works, while still encouraging new members to apply.

“Because this is such a unique living space, we want a large amount of people to be able to experience it,” explained Mason.

Since Ferry residents are not on a meal plan, they pay $425 that goes towards house food purchases, comparable to the amount spent by those living in senior housing. This money goes into a bank account used to pay for groceries. Ferry has a policy that all house food purchases must be either vegetarian or vegan. Residents try to buy foods that are organic, and they try to support local businesses such as Adams. They also shop at Stop & Shop to buy rice, flour, grains, nuts, dried fruit and teas in bulk. Price comparisons are performed regularly to ensure that each communal dollar is well spent.

Recent house meetings have discussed the issue of integrating Ferry and the greater Vassar community. Ferry Residents Arts Night (FRAN), held every other Friday evening, usually books on-campus musicians and draws a sizeable non-Ferry crowd.

“We don’t have a big budget, and we’re not trying to be ViCE,” said Mason. “We’re just trying to open up the house to the campus.”

According to Ferry House VSA representative Ariana Brill ’06, many students have a misconception of Ferry residents.

“Most people don’t realize that Ferry is an incredibly diverse community,” said Brill. “Really, the only thing that all of the Ferries have in common is that we're all interested in trying to make cooperative living work.”