Stefan T. Vail Cooperative House
Coordinates: 42°17′01.91″N 83°44′30.90″W / 42.2838639°N 83.7419167°W In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Stefan T. Vail Cooperative House (or Vail House) is a housing cooperative for college students at the University of Michigan, Washtenaw Community College, and Eastern Michigan University. A member of the Inter-Cooperative Council (ICC) in Ann Arbor, Vail house is named after Stefan Valavanis, a former ICC President who became a notable economist.
History
The building proper was constructed in 1853 and has been recognized by the Ann Arbor Historical Commission; one of the pillars on the front porch bears a plaque which identifies it as the Hubbell Gregory House. Gregory was the original owner of the house and his descendants lived there until 1914. Afterwards it became the residence of the family of Horace Greely Prettyman, who owned the Ann Arbor Press. In 1960 it was purchased by the Inter-Cooperative Council and opened as women's housing cooperative in the Fall of 1961. In addition to being one of the oldest houses in Ann Arbor, Vail House also boasts a magnificent oak tree in its front yard which has been estimated to be over two hundred years old.
Stefan T. Valavanis
Vail House was named for Stefan T. Vail (or Stefan Valavanis), who was an ICC member and president in the mid-1950s. While at the University of Michigan, Stefan Vail helped to devise the financial structure of the ICC.[1] After having earned his doctorate in economics, Stefan Vail was an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University from 1956–1958.[2] Stefan Vail was killed in Greece in the summer of 1958, while he was visiting his family. His death was called a "tragedy" by his senior colleague at the Harvard Economics Department, Seymour Harris, who wrote that Valavanis was "brilliant, imaginative, and a first–class scholar and teacher"; according to Seymour, Valavanis's econometrics textbook had "pedagogical strength", proceeding "more by statements of problems and examples than by the development of mathematical proofs".[3] Soon after, the ICC Board of Directors voted to name the next house they purchased after Vail, in recognizing his contributions to the ICC and to economics.[4] In 1979, European members of the Econometric Society contributed papers to a volume commemorating Valavanis.[5]
The MILK crate Debacle
During the Winter 2016 semester, rival coops MichMinnie's and Vail House engaged in a series of pranks. Initiated by Vail Cooperative House, the war culminated in the complete destruction of Vail House by an elite squad of anthropomorphic milk-crate operatives. Truce was formally ratified when a joint Vail-MM Progressive Party was agreed upon over a "peace", "jazz" cigarette on Saturday the 2nd, April 2016. The two coops lived happily every after, although MichMinnie's was still slightly cooler.
References
- ↑ Stephan T. Vail Cooperative House History
- ↑ Valavanis, Stefan (1959). Alfred H. Conrad (from Vail's manuscript), ed. Econometrics: An introduction to maximum likelihood methods. Economics handbook series. New York: McGraw–Hill Book Company, Inc.
- ↑ Harris, Seymour, ed.; Valavanis, Stefan (1959). "Editor's preface". Econometrics: An introduction to maximum likelihood methods. Economics handbook series (edited by Alfred H. Conrad (from Vail's manuscript) and posthumously published ed.). New York: McGraw–Hill Book Company, Inc. pp. vii–viii.
- ↑ Stephan T. Vail Cooperative House History
- ↑ E. G. Chratis, ed. (1981). Proceedings of the Econometric Society European meeting 1979 (Athens, September 3–6): Selected econometric papers in memory of Stefan Valavanis. Contributions to economic analysis 138. pp. xvi+444. ISBN 0-444-86184-X.