Extending the spirit of Lockhart Co-op

When I first came here as a graduate student, I hated it. The undergrads all seemed very homogeneous and blissfully privileged in their pre-professional romp through Princeton. Of course, I really didn't know any undergraduates at the time. That is what made the stereotypical image seem so accurate and compelling. All I saw were the plantation-style eating club buildings, the lackluster ethnic scene and the virtual absence of student activism on campus. That was enough to convince me during my first semester here that I should steer clear of the undergrads.

The next semester, I joined a non-residential vegetarian co-op in Lockhart Hall, largely for health reasons. Once I began to cook, eat and socialize with undergraduates, I realized that many of them were not as unreasonable or superficial as I had presumed. I found that many of them were only one or two years younger than me and that we shared very similar concerns and outlooks. And none of the undergrads had any problem with graduate students participating in the culinary cooperative. Indeed, many of them had invited their former preceptors and teammates to join the co-op whenever spaces became available.

The funny thing about Lockhart Co-Op is that graduate students were never officially part of it, at least in the eyes of the University administration. Graduate students were not even allowed to have keys to Lockhart Hall. However, we found easy ways to get around that restriction. Before the University instituted its completely irrational prox-card policy (which still prevents undergraduate and graduate students from visiting each other), undergraduate members of the co-op would help grad students gain access by "losing" their keys and getting replacements.

To all of us in the co-op, Lockhart was one of those rare, intimate and integrated spaces where we could cook and eat together. And we always talked — whether it be debating intensely, laughing loudly or chattering mindlessly. Lockhart Co-op is no more, but I still sometimes get whiffs of that engaging-yet-freewheeling atmosphere in Mathey College and Terrace eating club, where I am a graduate fellow. But not in many other spaces. Certainly not in Frist, where the promise of grad-undergrad interaction still remains a potentiality in search of programming.

I therefore look with restrained excitement at the return of graduate students to Lockhart Hall for one year. Although I will not be here, I am excited that grad students will not only be able to cook in Lockhart kitchen but will also be able to live in the hall itself. Instead of being forced to buy a car or pay exorbitant rents in town, homeless grad students can look forward to a year of affordable living in central campus.

At the same time, my enthusiasm is muted. That is because some administrators and students still subscribe to the segregationist view that graduate students should not be living in central campus. They still cling to the anachronistic stereotype of graduate students as soul-less preceptors who refrain from social activities or student organizations. These are the same people who will see Lockhart as the "weirdo dorm," where scary preceptors hatch ingenious plots to take over the world (or at least to torture their preceptees). This, despite the fact that the grad students who choose to live in Lockhart will most likely be those who are closest in age and outlook to the undergraduates. It is my sincere hope that undergraduates will not shy away from Lockhart next year, and that the residents of Lockhart will make a special effort to reach out to the rest of central campus. I also hope that the "spirit of Lockhart Co-Op" can extend to residential colleges other than Mathey, and to eating clubs other than Terrace.

Graduate students are already quite involved in integrated activities such as workers-rights organizations, ethnic associations and productions at Theatre-Intime. By slowly and partially integrating our eating and living spaces, we can finally hope to step beyond our caricaturized images of each other. Only then can we fully enjoy what we all have to offer in this place we temporarily call home. S. Karthick Ramakrishnan is a politics and Office of Population Research graduate student from Holden, Mass. He can be reached at karthick@princeton.edu.