Living the vegan lifestyle isn’t easy, especially if you’re still living off of the dining hall meal plan. Luckily, Bryn Mawr has a vegan, self-sustaining community right on campus. Unlike the other eleven dorms on campus, Batten House is only open to students dedicated to having an environmentally focused co-operative lifestyle for at least a year.
If you are a student at Bryn Mawr College, vegan, environmentally-conscious, and interested in residing at Batten House next year, here are 6 things to know before applying.
1. Only rising upperclassmen can apply during the spring semester to live in Batten House.
Sorry, no frosh allowed! First-years must wait until their spring semester to apply to live in Batten for the following year.
2. Only a small handful of students reside at Batten House, so everyone living there is like one big family.
Since there’s only a handful of selected students living at Batten, everyone in Batten House makes an effort to function as a family and a support system for one another. There are many communal spaces in the dorm in which students spend time together. Everyone is attentive to and aware of the well-being of all the students living in Batten.
3. Students have a shift each week to cook vegan dinner meals for everyone.
Everyone in Batten has a shift to cook dinner from Sunday to Thursday nights as well as Sunday brunch. Don’t worry if you’ve never cooked for a big group by yourself. You get a cooking partner to help you! Other than those days, everyone is welcome to cook their own unique, vegan meals.
4. The vegetables in their dishes come from a local farm share.
Every week, those who need to cook dinner go pick up the vegetables they need at the farm share and buy the rest of the ingredients at a grocery store.
5. Students have house dues that cover the costs of all the ingredients.
In the beginning of the semester, everyone living in Batten must pay the house dues in which covers all the costs of the groceries, including the ingredients picked from the farm share.
6. Not everyone who lives in Batten is actually vegan, but they are conscious of having an environmentally friendly lifestyle!
Some of the students who reside in Batten are not actually vegan/vegetarian, yet they care about having an environmentally friendly lifestyle in order to minimize harm to Mother Nature.