Dinner with 400 of your closest friends. Sparsely attended house committee meetings. Stressed-out neighbors who pack house libraries.

While a house may be the ideal place of residence for most students, there's a band of undergraduates that has rejected this much-ballyhooed house system in favor of baking bread and communal living.

Co-ops offer College free-spirits a taste of the real world and a privacy and freedom that makes long hikes to classes and to the Square worthwhile.

And while co-opers will never represent the mainstream Harvard student, residents say old stereo-types are waning as co-op life attracts more diverse students.

"Harvard's greatest resource," boasts the official Harvard-Radcliffe first-year application pamphlet, is its House system. "Far more than a place to eat and sleep, a House is important in a student's intellectual and social life."

And it is. Harvard's house life is one of the most comprehensive among the nation's universities, with 96 percent of the undergraduate student body living in one of the 12 houses on campus or, as first-years, in the Yard.

But for the 48 students who have renounced the Harvard house tradition, the Dudley and Jordan cooperatives, two alternative on-campus living arrangements, offer communal co-habitation and peer support.

These co-ops, established in the early 1970s, are affiliated with Dudley and North Houses, respectively, and pay rent to the University. They are, however, primarily managed by residents and boast an active student committee and high rates of participation.

And residents say they especially like this responsibility for self-management that co-op life offers and that house life lacks.

"I was looking for an escape from the Yard," says Tracey L. Carter '95, who transferred into Dudley co-op half-way through her first-year.

Carter says the two years she had spent at a prep school helped her adjust to dorm life more easily than her first-year roommates. In the co-ops, she says, she found more maturity and freedom.

"I ended up liking it," says Carter. "It ended up suiting me really well."

Although different students have their own reasons for shunning mainstream housing, this need for a more independent lifestyle is characteristic of all co-opers.

In the co-ops, "There's not that craziness and weirdness of the House," says Nick Hourigan '93, co-president of Dudcly co-op. "The autonomy and freedom is great."

Most students who live in the co-ops say they can also enjoy a community atmosphere that doesn't exist in the houses.

"It's a great, wonderful place," says Jason Innes '93-94, who moved into the Dudley co-op after two semesters in Adams House. "It's good-sized community--40 people are more supportive and personal."

"We have a working community. I know what houses can offer eventually, but the co-op gave me that immediately," Innes says.

And while co-opers say this way of life is not for everyone, they also say co-ops have diversified.

"It's a real mix," says Dudley co-op tutor Elizabeth DeSombre of the co-op population. "I've been here three and a half years and it's always changing."

In fact, Innes says, the co-ops have shaken off much of the old stereo-types.

"The co-ops have lost their stereotypes-it used to be crunchie, at least half the people were hippy, into drugs and natural, tofu," Innes says. "The food is still vegetarian, but its not as hard core anymore--there are more different kinds of people that want to live here."

Hourigan says residents of the co-ops have always tended to be more politically liberal.

"A lot of people at Harvard identify with the mainstream. At the co-op, they set up their own environment," he says.

But Hourigan says he has noticed a decline in political interest and activity in the Dudley co-op population in the past three years.

"There was a different crowd in the past--more politically active to the left and involved in everything. It was interesting and exciting--a funkier crowd," Hourigan says. "Now people are still on the left, but are not as involved in expressing that and maintaining that. It's more to the center through slightly to the left."

Still, others say, they appreciate the co-ops' supportive environment.

"In general people her have more similar values," says Carter. "I find that in the houses people place are more competitive. Here it's more laid back. People place more importance on other things in their life, not just on getting a high paid job--people are more concerns about people and less about status."

"It's the only place where you choose where you live and you know the definition of community," says Innes. "You decide and try to live there."

Although the co-ops constitute quite a hike from classrooms and other campus centers, residents say they don't mind.

"It's nice to walk here," Innes says. "And leaving school behind to go to a place that's home."

"I like living in a house and going to work, its nice not to live in the midst [of classes]," Carter says.

"I feel more like an adult," she says.

Baking Bread

"It's a house that's really a house," DeSombre says.

And just like at home, there are chores to complete.

All co-opers take turns preparing meals for fellow residents and cleaning the building.

These chores, which also include scrubbing bathrooms and washing floors, are divided among the residents according to a two-week point system.

"The co-opers are the only Harvard students who clean their own rooms," says DeSombre proudly. "At dinner everyone sits at the table and has a home-cooked meal, you know everybody, you talk."

"It definitely is nice cooking your own food," Innes says. "It brings everybody together."

Both Dudley and Jordan co-opers order food, mostly vegetarian, from a wholesaler. Twice a week, the aroma of freshly baked bread and granola wafts through their buildings.

Jordan co-op's Head Tutor Leo Cabranes-Grant says baking bread and granola is a evidence of self-sufficiency as well as a political statement.

"The political implication is that we don't get everything through commercial means," Leo says. "It also shows our control over the quality of our products."

It's also a taste of real life, Horgan says. "Eventually in your life you'll have to cook," he says. "You have to clean up after yourself and are responsible."

Financial Bonus

An added incentive to living in the co-ops is that both room and board is considerably less expensive.

Since the University owns both Dudley and Jordan, the room fees are term-billed while board expenses are internally managed by co-op officers.

Rooms cost $2100 and board costs $1000 per year in Dudley, amounting to almost half of the cost of room and board in the houses.

Jordan co-opers pay the same amount for their rooms as house residents but pay less than half as much in board fees.

"There is a financial bonus," Carter says. "Even if I didn't like the place, I would probable still live here [because it's cheaper]."

And as the advantages of co-op life grow, so does the competition for rooms, DeSombre says.

Interviews are used to handle the influx of prospective co-opers, she says, and are important both for the co-op and for students.

Students should know that "pets, vegetarian food, and shower sharing" are a part of everyday co-op life, she says. "It's been really full lately and we're constantly turning people away."

Residents say this screening process helps to maintain the "co-op atmosphere."

"People find out by people who live here. I'm glad we don't have the hockey team here--there would be different dynamics--you have to be into the community atmosphere," Carter says.

And students say their active participation in managing co-op affairs is evidence of this communal involvement.

The co-ops have a decision-making body which holds inclusive meetings every Sunday to discuss issue pertinent to the co-op.

These meetings, students say, are very informal and involve a high degree of participation.

"The meetings function as a non-bureaucratic system," Carter says.

"You talk until everybody's happy. People get pissed off if there's a vote before everyone has had their say," she says.

Since the co-op government is much less hierarchical than house governing system, co-opers say their meetings are more relaxed and open.

And because of their emphasis on individual and communal responsibility, the co-ops can train students for real life, says Cabranes-Grant.

"The co-ops are a place where people prepare for the transition after they get their degrees," Cabranes-Grant says.

"It's a great opportunity to see 'How am I going to deal with the life out there,'" he says.