By Dessa Bayrock (Contributor) – Email
Date Posted: October 4, 2011
Print Edition: September 28, 2011
Let’s be serious – we’ve all, by now, glanced surreptitiously and jealously at the posters around campus advertising the fact that if we lived in Baker House, we could be home by now. But other than that, the brick goliath above the campus bookstore remains a largely a mystery to the everyday student. It might be because it’s tucked away on an unassuming corner of campus, but have you ever seen anyone go in… or out?
Well, there’s more going on in that building than meets the eye. Even if you don’t live in residence, you might find yourself hearing more and more about it in the semesters to come.
It all boils down to the organization that keeps Baker House sticking together: the Baker House Residents’ Association. Basically, the students who live in Baker House vote in a board of students who in turn try to keep things running smoothly. As Chris Doyle, the second floor rep, put it, “We provide the basic events and programs to attempt to keep people at Baker House entertained. We also try to provide a listening ear and a voice for the students [who live in Baker House.]” In short, they keep the place running by smoothing ruffled feathers when students get into spats, providing shoulders to cry on when midterms roll around, and generally keeping the peace.
They also plan barbeques, daytrips to Vancouver, and other events aimed at getting students out of their rooms and involved in campus life. This year, Doyle said, they hope to start doing other kinds of things as well, such as cooking classes, potluck suppers, and mass movie nights.
The BHRA may soon start making its way into the lives of the non-Baker House student; it’s only this past year that they’ve voted in a full board, and those involved are getting bigger and bigger ideas. Even though events have been aimed primarily at Baker House residents in the past, the BHRA is hoping to start involving more of the general student body – Doyle sees a future in which they co-sponsor events with Student Life or UFV’s athletics department, which would allow the BHRA to both “connect to more students in general, and to advocate on a larger scale for Baker House.”
In short, Doyle imagines a future in which UFV’s clubs and associations are all laced together and interconnected, which is definitely the direction the BHRA is headed. Eventually, Doyle said, they hope to enlist the help of the various culture clubs, video game clubs, and other games clubs. He explained that it is his ultimate goal to see the BHRA “get more involved with student matters, because while events are good, we as a group should try to go outside of that realm and help students in a more personal way.”
And after all, even if only 200 out of nearly 16,000 students at UFV live in Baker House, the BHRA is doing on a smaller scale what the University is trying to do as a whole: give students a sense of pride, and ensure that the memories they make here are good ones.
