The Ends of Possibilities

The CSB was created by UMass as a means of holding financial oversight, as well as education and advisement with the growing student businesses on campus in 1975. Currently, the CSB works with seven on-campus student-run businesses that, although not precisely worker owned co-ops because of their position within the University, are cooperative enterprises in their democratic organization and horizontal structure.

The CSB employs two full-time employees, who work with seven undergrad financial consultants. These consultants work with the co-managers, performing financial advisement as well as serving as further conduits of communication between the CSB and the student businesses. All of the student businesses operate independently and are self-managed, operating under the one-worker-one-vote system. The CSB serves to provide support for the student businesses through education and training in cooperative economic growth as well as through support like a reserved loan fund to support businesses that may be struggling to profit.

The CSB was founded with consideration of the Rochdale Principles of Cooperation, and looks to support cooperative and ethical business on campus. Simply participating in a co-op can have a transformative effect on how an individual perceives their relation and participation in the economy. Many student-business alumni have gone on to work in cooperatives and create ethical economic growth. It is a mission of the CSB to work to expand the reach of its cooperative principles, which is seen in its partnership with various local cooperative organizations such as the UMassFive College Credit Union, who have provided advisement and orientation for new hires.

The CSB’s fostering of cooperative principles and solidarity economics have certainly grown the possibility for such organization on and off-campus. By working more directly with the greater university financial structure and larger ethical economic institutions like the Five College Credit Union, the CSB could work to expand solidarity principles to more untraditional spaces on campus, and introduce cooperative organization wherever there is potential for transformation.