Nine months after nearly losing its social justice theme, Columbae — a co-op on the Row — debuted merchandise that means more to them than just another piece of Stanford memorabilia: hardy, brown Carhartt jackets embroidered with a white dove and the name of the house.

“We wanted something that would reflect that people would be here for a long time,” said Jason Hu ’26, a resident assistant (RA) in Columbae.

Tenzin Werner ’27, a resident of the house, said living at Columbae provided her with friends that have “begun to feel like family. To her, the jackets “serve as a reminder of these relationships, which [she] hope[s] will be as enduring as Carhartt.”

But Columbae RAs weren’t the only ones giving their merch extra thought this year. 

While Columbae gave Carhartt’s durable jackets a new meaning, Otero — the public service-themed dorm in Wilbur — perfected an old recipe. 

Maria Correa ’25, one of the Otero RAs, helped decide on the dorm’s iconic merch, blue sweatpants with the word “Otero” on the front and the words “Publicly Serving” over the rear.

The merch is beloved by Otero’s residents, who had a say in the design and the creation. 

“It was a very, very positive reaction,” Correa said. “I see people wearing them all the time.” 

Throughout campus, RAs plaster their dorm name on t-shirts, sweaters, pants, jackets and more. While RAs spearhead the process of designing, sourcing and purchasing merchandise for their residents, Residential Education (ResEd) staff are available to consult with RAs on idea creation and sourcing licensed vendors, according to Charlene Gage, a University spokesperson.

Dorm names, like Stanford’s name and logo, “are considered protected intellectual property by the University,” Gage wrote in an email to The Daily, meaning that merchandise that uses dorm names must be approved by Stanford’s Trademark Use & Licensing office. While the whole process can take around 11 weeks, she said, the office typically completes its review of the design within five to 10 days of receiving the order from the vendor. 

Samantha Dizon ’26, an RA at Larkin, a freshman dorm, and a former video staffer at The Daily, started the merch process even earlier. For freshman dorms, dorm shirts had to be ready by the beginning of New Student Orientation (NSO).

Dizon designed the merch and said she went through several iterations over the summer. Some of her original iterations included Hoover Tower and the In-and-Out logo (for Larkin’s “Larkin-and-Out” theme), but the Trademark Use & Licensing office flagged both of them. 

While she doesn’t think the shirts reflect the theme as well as she hoped, she said she was happy with the final product. While the base of the shirt is a bright blue that drew “mixed” opinions from the dorm’s freshmen, the residents seemed to enjoy the material and the design on the back, Dizon said.

Marie Goodson ’28, a Larkin resident, said the shirts are “soft and colorful,” which she likes.

“I love seeing [the shirts] out and about,” Dizon said.