Syllabus language:
Food insecurity is defined by the USDA as “a lack of access to enough food for an active, healthy life.” Food insecure categories include: reduced caloric intake, reduced food quality, lack of variety in diet, disrupted eating patterns, and hunger. Research shows that college students experience food insecurity at higher rates than the American household rate, and that food insecurity can negatively impact academic performance and persistence. In recognition of this problem, UNC Charlotte offers assistance to students facing food insecurity through an on- campus food pantry. The Jamil Niner Student Pantry (JNSP) is located on the east edge of campus at 1224 John Kirk Road. It has regular hours which may change from semester to semester; please see the website at https://ninerpantry.uncc.edu/ for schedule and details on its services, as well as resources about hunger and food insecurity among college students. Spring 2020 hours: MTWR 2-5pm, F 11-2pm
Other suggested syllabi language:https://legal.uncc.edu/legal-topics/classroom-policies-and-practices/suggested-syllabus-policies-notices
Suggestions from our studies and others:
| Provide access to needed resources via a Resource center: Funded position for full-time focus on student needs – Keith Curry, Compton College at RealCollege 2019 |
| by helping students in accessing federal, state, and community food assistance, Educate and enroll students in SNAP, e.g. work study students (HOPE March 2019 brief, Food Insecurity on College Campuses Susan Blumenthal, M.D. and Christina Chu https://hope4college.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Beyond-the-Food-Pantry-Student-Access-to-SNAP.pdf) |
| Single Stop is helping community college students access food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit, and home-grown programs at institutions in many states are integrating benefits access into their financial aid and student affairs portfolios. http://singlestopusa.org/# |
| Help students access financial aid from the start, rather than to recommend that they delay aid like Pell Grants (HOPE March 2019 brief) |
| By hiring campus support staff in the form of counselors and social-workers, Broton, K., & Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). |
| By having an extremely active and accessible resource center, “Advocacy and Research Center,” students can connect with counselors and legal aid advisors, as well as access a food pantry and clothing closet and learn about the dozens of other support services the Texas community offers. https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/15419/First_Report_on_Amarillo_College_Poverty_Initiative_Yields_Positive_Results_Cultural_Shift; https://hope4college.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Amarillo-College-No-Excuses-Poverty-Initiative-Strategy-Guide_v5.pdf |
| By creating working groups to address the basic needs of students (Food Insecurity on College Campuses Susan Blumenthal, M.D. and Christina Chu https://www.clasp.org/press-room/news-clips/food-insecurity-college-campuses |
| By collaborating with nonprofits to assist their goals, and working with housing and food insecurity authorities. Broton, & Goldrick-Rab (2016). |
| Through identifying students who need support: Starfish Project Hope: Investigating basic needs insecurity and improving student success with a retention platform. |
| – Participating institutions will need to agree to make the Starfish Intake form available to students to fill out (rather than by faculty/staff on their behalf). The form will start with a page of questions to be determined by the Hope Center which cannot be edited, and the institution’s own intake form will follow. We will share more details about participation with interested institutions as we get closer to launch. The enhanced Starfish Intake form with Starfish Project Hope questions will be available during the Spring of 2020. [how can we use the data to serve students better?] |
| Assessment |
| In terms of assessment, the HOPE study might be useful for us to join: https://realcollege.org/realcollege-survey/ |
| College affordability: |
| Broton and Goldrick-Rab suggest large institutional changes, specifically, “A truly affordable college system would go a long way in reducing the poverty experiences of college students. Coordination with the social safety net would bring about even greater opportunities for all Americans to pursue a higher education, regardless of economic background.” Academic institutions can take action to change policies regarding financial due dates, and provide interest free loans |
| Provide financial support for food needs: |
| Bunker Hill Community College: In the pilot program, students who self-identified as food insecure received vouchers that enabled them to eat for free in the College’s food service venues during the spring 2016 semester. https://hope4college.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Addressing-Basic-Needs-Security-in-Higher-Education.pdf; https://www.bhcc.edu/magazine/foodforthought/ |
| Houston Community College: Food scholarships simply provide food to students. The support is available from HFB as long as students remain enrolled at HCC. Students get groceries from HFB twice per month at designated food pantry locations around the city, which are within a ten-mile radius of each campus. https://hope4college.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Addressing-Basic-Needs-Security-in-Higher-Education.pdf |
| Allow financial aid to cover non-tuition expenses (HOPE March 2019 brief) |
| Emergency funds– No Excuses fund is “administered with little fuss and appears to achieve its goal of helping students without burdening them in the process.” there is no formal application, and students do not need to “prove” their economic statuses to receive the help they need. https://hope4college.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Emergency-Student-Aid-Brief.pdf, https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/15419/First_Report_on_Amarillo_College_Poverty_Initiative_Yields_Positive_Results_Cultural_Shift; https://hope4college.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Amarillo-College-No-Excuses-Poverty-Initiative-Strategy-Guide_v5.pdf |
| Improve access to food (in addition to pantries like UNCC’s Jamil Niner Student Pantry) |
| Via transportation: improve bus routes or ridesharing. One student stated, “It’s be really cool if students could get free rides off campus.” (UNCC 2017) we note that the new bus/transit pass addresses some of this, but are the routes helpful for getting to stores, etc? |
| A communal cooking space so students will be able to meal plan/prep efficiently (UNCC 2017) |
| Education programs: “institutional interventions aimed at addressing student financial need, especially among underrepresented minority and first-generation students, could be expanded to include food and nutrition education/outreach programs on how to shop for and prepare healthy low-cost foods.” Payne-Sturges, D., Tjaden, A., Caldeira, K., Vincent, K., & Arria, A. (2018). Student Hunger on Campus: Food Insecurity Among College Students and Implications for Academic Institutions. American Journal of Health Promotion, 32(2), 349–354. https://doi.org/10.1177/0890117117719620 |
| Recipe cards may be useful for planning (UNCC 2017) |
| Eighty-eight percent of the students at Houston Community College, polled last semester indicated that food giveaways helped them focus more on school, according to a survey by the college. http://theconversation.com/food-scholarships-could-help-more-students-finish-college-91615 |
| Pantry sponsored “Meet & Eat”s could involve potluck meals and an opportunity to meet others, share ideas and strategies, and make connections with others who could be in similar situations (or want to help) that they could connect with outside of campus life. (UNCC 2017) |
| Building networks for community dinner, friends to purchase food in bulk with (UNCC 2019 interviews) |
| School lunch program like national one for k12 and other colleges (HOPE March 2019 brief) |
| Improve Awareness of resources |
| Given the challenges for food preparation and transportation, providing this information on the website or in other ways could be helpful. (UNCC 2017) Also social media, orientation materials, syllabi, signage, flyers |
| Faculty awareness: resources for faculty about services available for student needs |
| Example: a faculty and university staff that have been made aware of the issues of poverty their students face and are motivated to help. Faculty had the opportunity to learn about poverty on their campus through a poverty forum the school offered in 2012, and were trained to recognize the signs that a student is struggling. Since, faculty has taken it upon themselves to help students through efforts such as checking in with students when they miss class and picking up students whose cars broke down. Additionally, the school offers a program for staff who do not have the opportunity to interact daily with students to serve as mentors for students, known as the Coaches and Champions Mentoring Program. https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/15419/First_Report_on_Amarillo_College_Poverty_Initiative_Yields_Positive_Results_Cultural_Shift; https://hope4college.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Amarillo-College-No-Excuses-Poverty-Initiative-Strategy-Guide_v5.pdf |
| Housing |
| Help students identify spare rooms in the community (HOPE March 2019 brief) |
| Example: Southern Scholarship Foundation housing initiative: Rent-free student housing for Florida students. The current SSF model includes more than 450 students living in 27 houses across the state and attending one of SSF’s seven partnering state colleges and universities. https://www.southernscholarship.org/ |
| Example: Supporting Public Housing in Chicago: Helping residents complete community college. The Kresge Foundation recently announced the three-year, $500,000 grant that will expand “One Million Degrees” (OMD) comprehensive community college student support services to CHA residents attending City Colleges of Chicago. The new collaboration builds upon the CHA’s Partners in Education program, providing public housing residents full funding for community college including tuition, books and fees. The program draws first on federal grant aid; unmet financial need is covered through vouchers, allowing residents to complete an associate degree debt-free at one of the City Colleges. |
| Housing- prefab cuts costs. Build for families. Statewide requests for proposals – allows other colleges to piggy backing for bids – Keith Curry, Compton College at RealCollege 2019 |
| Policy: |
| In the long run, federal and state policies increasing access to food stamps, food programs, and financial obstacles will be a large contender in creating change. Broton, K., & Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). The Dark Side of College (Un)Affordability: Food and Housing Insecurity in Higher Education. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 48(1), 16–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2016.1121081 |
Sources:
- UNCC 2017: Adams, Kara, Jessica Allison, Quinn Barnette, Victoria Bracken, Curtis Chancy, Crystal Cruz, Heather Dinkins, Daniel Dvorak, John Hemrick, Corrine Huffman, Taylor Hurwitz, Hadley Mason, Alexis Mitchell, Audrey Page, Nicole Peterson, Julian Robinson, Christopher Smith, Mitchell Souders, Shanna Stewart, and Maya Washington. 2017 Understanding the Elements of Food Insecurity at UNCC. Report on ANTH 4111 project to the UNCC Jamil Niner Food Pantry Spring 2017.
- UNCC 2019: data collected in 2019 through interviews with self-identified food insecure students at UNCC
- Hope March 2019 brief: Goldrick-Rab, Sarah, and Cochrane, Debbie. 2019. Addressing the Basic Needs of California Community College Students https://ticas.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy-files/pub_files/hope-ticas-cccco-brief.pdf
- Real College 2019 videos available at https://vimeo.com/hope4college
- Broton, K., & Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). The Dark Side of College (Un)Affordability: Food and Housing Insecurity in Higher Education. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 48(1), 16–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2016.1121081