By Chloe Gentile-Montgomery with Christopher M Bacon
Although many people like to joke about college students hanging around campus for the free food, or eating a diet consisting mainly of Ramen noodles, behind this trope is an injustice and failure to secure an important human right to food for college-going students. Food insecurity was already a growing problem across college campuses in the United States, before COVID-19 significantly exacerbated these challenges. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. The flip of food security is food insecurity, in which we encounter obstacles as individuals or families strive to maintain food availability, access, utilization, stability, and their own agency.
Beyond the negative health impacts of food insecurity and hunger, students who are food insecure are more likely to struggle with their academics due to lack of proper nutrition, making food insecurity a risk to students’ completion and retention rate. Even at a school like SCU, where the completion rate is rather high, students may be impacted by dropping grades in other ways as well, such as being disqualified for a scholarship or job opportunity due to a low GPA. It is imperative for institutions to have a plan to combat food insecurity as it often becomes a social justice issue wherein low income and BIPOC students are more heavily impacted. It is currently estimated that 38% of students at 4-year institutions are experiencing food insecurity and food pantries are needing to get creative to keep up with demand. Unfortunately, there has not been adequate research done on what these numbers look like at private non-profit universities, as only 6% of institutions participating in Hope Lab research are private colleges and universities. (REAL College 2020: Five Years of Evidence on Campus Basic Needs Insecurity). To learn more about how food and housing insecurity impact students across the country, check out this presentation from Hope Lab and the following graphs.
Source: Hope Lab “Emergency Aid During the Pandemic” presentation
Despite being thoroughly researched at various universities across the country, student food insecurity has not yet been systematically studied or funded at Santa Clara University. The Bronco Food Pantry has done grassroots work to support students and are planning to scale up. Alongside Dr. Bacon in the ESS department, we are developing a research project to look into how food insecurity is impacting SCU students and to propose solutions to better support all students in accessing full food security with dignity in their food choices. In this project, funded by SCU’s REAL program and the Center for Food Innovation and Entrepreneurship, we will study the patterns of food insecurity among Santa Clara University’s students and identify best practices to further improve the effectiveness and cultural relevance of support offered bySanta Clara University’s Bronco Food Insecurity Program. To assess the agency of food choices and imagine creative solutions to secure the human right to food, we also intend to inform this research from the work of civil rights activists of the past and present. That means looking to the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program, the slew of “free fridges” that popped up this summer, mutual aid programs, and more.
The research team will partner with the Bronco Food Insecurity Program, and the Multicultural Center (MCC) to help to understand these issues and develop a list of recommendations that aim to ensure that all Santa Clara University students can achieve food security. We will also interview staff and faculty at other colleges and universities to understand what they have done to address these issues as well as for guidance on what strategies to avoid. As a final product the team plans to produce a report on the state of food insecurity at the university as well as some action-oriented goals for the university to take steps to produce a more food just campus.
We will also assess students’ food sovereignty, as an approach that recognizes student ideas, ethics, and values and uses them to help generate and assess potential solutions. Food sovereignty posits that students, farmers, and eaters should be able to strongly influence what foods they eat on a day to day basis, find cultural meaning in their meals, and participate in broader agricultural and food systems that are broadly consistent with their social and ethical values. Students are often prohibited from this kind of food access due to cost or availability of culturally relevant foods. Furthermore, available foods should be produced sustainably and in ways that avoid exploitation of farmers and food workers. After interviewing students, faculty, and staff, we will analyze how each group views food sovereignty and the contours of potential solutions.
If you would like to get involved as a participant in this research project, please do not hesitate email us to sign up for an interview or focus group at cgentilemontgomery@scu.edu and cbacon@scu.edu We appreciate any and all input to help identify the best solutions to this complex challenge. Stay up to date with this research project on this blog page!