In 2023, the Berkeley Student Cooperative, my home for the entirety of college, was on unsteady ground. The organization was in debt following the pandemic, overwhelmed by maintaining the infrastructure of its historical buildings, reckoning with a decline in membership, and struggling to maintain a political identity.

That fall, three members of our community passed away. Though they lived at different housing units, students from across the organization came together to support each other. I saw a need in our community to maintain a connected culture beyond that time of acute crisis.

The BSC has had a tradition of student publications since its founding in 1933, but this practice had been dormant for at least 15 years. I spent time exploring the archives of these projects and imagining what a BSC student news project would look like in the 2020s. The result was the first issue of The Coop, published in spring 2024, a collaborative effort by an initial team of 10 volunteer student journalists featuring reporting on local and internal politics, student life, mutual aid, and creative works.

The BSC’s slogan is: “We own it, we run it.” In this issue, I wanted to explore and question the extent to which that mission is still in practice, and what we could do as member-owners to redirect the future of the BSC to meet the needs of a changed and changing world.

Download a full PDF of The Coop: Issue 1 here.