Co-op hits a century; time enough to reflect on its glory days
The University of Guelph is home to one of the oldest student-run co-operatives in North America, and on Thursday, Nov. 21 they celebrated their 100th anniversary at the Bullring. According to Co-op’s website, only Harvard University and the University of Texas in Austin have co-operative bookstores which precede it.
Brenda Whiteside, Associate Vice-President of Student Affairs, made an appearance at the event to hand out free cake and pose for photos with CSA Executive and Co-op staff. Eight large boxes of cake, two massive cupcake tiers, a photo booth, a spin-to-win wheel, and a birthday card were all part of the festivities.
Students affiliated with the Co-operators Centre for Business and Social Entrepreneurship (CBaSE) helped facilitate the event, and have been working with the Co-op throughout the year to develop new marketing strategies.
That the Co-op has been around for so long is “really a testament to the spirit of Guelph students,” said Kirsten Middleton, Assistant Manager of the Co-op Bookstore. The Co-op currently has around five thousand members on campus. It is best known for operating the bookstore underneath Johnston Hall, though students may be less familiar with long and tumultuous history.
A brief history of the Co-op
Inspired by the burgeoning agricultural co-operative movement in rural Ontario, seven students from Ontario Agricultural College founded the Guelph Campus Co-op in November of 1913. The Co-op’s original purpose was to sell textbooks and school supplies to students on campus – a niche that had yet to be filled by the university.
Over the years, the Co-op steadily took on more roles; at its peak it was operating several on-campus tuck shops, two cafes, a pharmacy, a bookstore, and, by the 1960s, several off-campus housing sites.
But that growth came crashing down in 1989. The university had just hired Brian Segal as its new president and Segal almost immediately began to dismantle most of the Co-op’s operations. The administration started by taking over the Co-op’s University Centre establishments and then, most seriously, decided not to renew the Co-op Bookstore’s lease in McNaughton Building. The university had ambitions to become the sole bookseller on campus.
The Co-op argued that the takeover would violate the longstanding arrangement the organization had with the university: In 1936, the Co-op traded a valuable patch of land it owned (now War Memorial Hall) to the university in exchange for the exclusive right to sell textbooks on campus for the next 99 years.
In 1990, the Co-op took the university to court over the dispute. It argued that the university was ignoring the prior agreement, and successfully demonstrated that the administration was exercising its power unfairly to establish a monopoly on bookselling.
In the end, the Co-op retained the right to sell books on campus but was relegated to the basement of Johnston Hall. The university took over the bookstore in McNaughton.
While university had legitimate reasons wanting to get a bigger slice of the action on campus, as well as for thinking it could do a better job running those operations than the Co-op – which by the late 1980s was under a great deal of scrutiny for mismanagement – it had nevertheless reduced the Guelph Campus Co-op to but a shadow of its former self in just two years.
These days, the Co-op is intent on expanding into the housing market. It has recently approved the construction of a new 18-unit apartment complex on College Avenue West and is still focusing on providing students with as many different book formats as possible.
Though it is unclear what the next century holds for the Guelph Campus Co-op, the mood at the anniversary party was confident. “Onwards and upwards,” said Middleton. It seems attention is squarely focused on what the Co-op has the potential to be, rather than what it once was.