An Innovative Approach to Addressing Food Insecurity on Campus

For college students, nutrition plays a critical role in determining health outcomes, wellbeing and academic performance.  All students deserve the right to healthy, affordable and culturally relevant foods, but in Minnesota many students are struggling with consistent access to food on  college campuses. According to University of Minnesota School of Public Health, one in every four college students in Minnesota is food insecure, meaning they don’t have enough food to meet their essential needs or maintain a healthy lifestyle. Rates of food insecurity are even higher for first generation college students and students of color, especially Black, Indigenous, Latine, and multiracial students.

A new initiative at the University of Minnesota Morris is working to eliminate food insecurity on campus and empower students as leaders. The University of Minnesota Morris Food Justice Initiative helps to increase student’s access to healthy and culturally relevant foods, along with providing education on food preparation and why inequities exist in our current food systems.

“Most students have some financial constraints that impact the sort of food they have accessible to them,” said Clement Loo, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Student Success Coordinator in Equity, Diversity, and Intercultural Programs. “Our campus is also rural, further away from larger cities, lacking great transportation options, and historically culturally homogenous. So, there is a lack of variety in town when it comes to affordable, culturally relevant food.”

With support from the Center for Racial and Health Equity at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, the Food Justice Initiative at Morris is making healthy, culturally relevant foods accessible to students. The initiative is also supporting students in becoming food justice advocates and systems change leaders.

The University of Minnesota Morris was founded on the site of a Native American boarding school, known as the Morris Industrial School for Indians. In 1960, the school was transformed into a public university and what is now the University of Minnesota Morris campus. Since 1960, Morris has offered free tuition to Native American students. Today, over 300 Native American students attend Morris and make up more than 30% percent of the student body. This stands in stark contrast to other colleges and universities in Minnesota and nationwide, where Native students comprise just 1-2% of students at four-year colleges.

Supporting Native students in healing from the generational trauma of Indian Boarding Schools and other forced assimilation policies is imperative for them to be able to thrive at college. The University of Minnesota Morris Food Justice Initiative goes beyond the goal of food security and emphasizes the importance of culture and identity when it comes to food and nourishment. “It is important for the University to provide constant and easy ways for students to connect to culturally relevant foods, so the onus is not entirely on the student,” said liz Thomson, Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Director, Office of Equity, Diversity, and Intercultural Programs. “Student shouldn’t have to choose between attending UMN Morris or their culture.”

Through the Morris Food Justice Initiative, new food shelves and food recovery programs have been created on campus. Alongside donated and rescued foods, student food shelves are also stocked with traditional Indigenous and culturally relevant foods. Food shelves on campus are being used at higher rates, and rather than being stigmatized as a source of shame, culturally relevant foods and community organizing have helped to transform food shelves into a positive experience.

“Emphasizing the cultural and educational aspects of food access have reduced the stigma of using the various resources on campus,” said Clement Loo. “Students openly talk about obtaining food from the shelves and the food recovery programs and express excitement about the things that they got. I imagine just removing the shame of using resources to get food improves the wellbeing of many students. It also seems that students feel valued and empowered by how we’ve approached our work, and how we have framed food access as being about reclaiming and revitalizing culture as well as developing skills related to personal and community resilience.”

Student leaders have been integral to the success of the Food Justice Initiative. Student worker educators are helping to lead and organize food recovery activity, campus food shelves, and food and culture educational trips. “Student workers are teaching the new students how to track inventory of the food items, creating a grocery list, and distributing food,” said liz Thomson. “Our student employees are getting introduced to data collection, data analysis, and data reporting. Additionally, we are looking to add a career development aspect so that the student workers can see that there are career possibilities in the food justice field.”

The Food Justice Initiative is going beyond hunger relief and is helping to strengthen community and create a sense of belonging for a new generation of students on campus. Traditional foods are interconnected with culture, language, and spiritual health. “Part of the history of being displaced, dispossessed, and being forced to assimilate to a foreign culture includes Indigenous nations having their food systems and foodways being violently taken away from them,” said Clement Loo. “Moreover, our campus being the site of a former boarding school, which was one of the means that settler governments worked to suppress culture – including food systems and foodways- and force assimilation — has as part of our mission a duty to educate members and descendants of those Indigenous nations in ways that at the very least help to preserve, if not to further reclaim and revitalize, the culture that has and often continues to be taken away.”