Research
The College Campus as a Living Laboratory for Meaningful Food Systems Transformation by Jason R. Evans and April M. Roggio.
This week I read “The College Campus as a Living Laboratory for Meaningful Food Systems Transformation” by Jason R. Evans and April M. Roggio. In this paper, they argue that college campuses are communities that can be used as living labs to observe and solve issues of hunger, as well as how they can adapt for the better. They provide some background context on the continued rise of high calorie- low nutrient food being circulated in our food system, as well as continued issues of distribution that are resulting in hunger and use of government aid programs, before looking into the specifics of college hunger.
Evans and Roggio note how colleges have become increasingly more corporate, with students becoming customers purchasing a degree. They also reference how the demographic of college students has shifted heavily, with parents, older students, and employed students now being the majority of students enrolled nationwide. These are conflicting activities, as the needs of college students have changed and increased and yet the support and motivations of the college are not aligned with what would benefit students. They identify that many college students facing food insecurity also have unmet transportation needs, meaning the college often gets to decide what they eat.
The subject shifts to campus spending, and colleges more recent shift to focusing on student retention as opposed to admitting as many 18-year-olds as they can. Evans and Roggio argue that investing in students’ food security is important to this plan, that a student with a good quality of life is much more likely to stay where they are and be invested in their community, as well as highlighting the link between food insecurity and academic struggles.
“If changes in campus spending and investment practices around food on college campuses generate healthier students, more graduates, and more effective retention programming budgets, policy- makers in the larger food system should take note.”
Though our modern political system rarely exhibits an appetite for programs with immediate costs but delayed benefits, irrefutable evidence from college campuses that approximate the larger economy and food system might be an important catalyst to holistic political change.”
When ideating in the reimaging of some educational philosophy and programming, Evans and Roggio highlight the importance of student engagement in any attempted change or system, saying “Student engagement remains a key component of this work; all programmatic interventions are mediated by the degree to which higher education can reach students.” The whole point of colleges are to be places of learning and research, and so it is important to keep everyone’s life context in mind while operating them.
Evans and Roggio close with some detailed ideas on mitigating food waste on college campuses, identifying the large percentage of thrown-away food as a potential solution to food insecurity amongst students, as well as giving a larger scale comparison to the country overall. I really loved this paper and I hope I find more like it.
I have also started to do online research into other colleges with food systems programs, living labs, farms, growing programs, sustainability projects, etc. I will be continuing for a few weeks but this is what I have done fo this week!