On Nov. 15, the Undergraduate Student Government’s Subcommittee for Food Insecurity held a meeting in response to growing concerns from students over a lack of affordable and available food options. The week prior, USG’s Husky Market Initiative announced that it would be closing due to the lifting of the national pandemic restrictions.
During the meeting, USG announced a multi-faceted plan with several initiatives in place for the future. Two key parts of the plan involved pop-up snack pantries and cooking classes for students. While these initiatives will surely be beneficial to students, they are ultimately more of a bandaid treatment than a serious way to tackle food insecurity throughout the University of Connecticut.
The Daily Campus Editorial Board has previously highlighted the institutional problems at UConn that have contributed to food insecurity amongst its students. According to Husky Market’s own website, 55% of UConn students currently experience some type of food insecurity. Husky Market provided groceries to 1,500 students over its two year existence. Given that the total undergraduate student population at UConn is over 18,000, Husky Market is far too small a program to outright eliminate food insecurity at UConn.
Those students who were reliant on Husky Market for their groceries are not going to have the financial means to be able to afford a standard UConn meal plan with dining hall access. UConn has reinstated its policy making all first-year students live on campus. The cheapest available dorm for students is $3,820 a semester, while the cheapest dining plan is $3,013 a semester. Despite housing and dining on campus being well over $6,000 a semester already, both of these costs are only going to increase over the next five years for students.
The increasing costs of these plans are only going to create more food insecure students. Instead of seriously addressing the issue, UConn’s administration has practiced a pattern of deferring the issue of food insecurity to USG. While many of USG’s programs are well-intentioned and have positively impacted students, they simply do not have the money nor reach to adequately eliminate food insecurity.
Of course, there is the more recent initiative in Storrs of Husky Harvest, a food pantry located in the Charter Oak Apartments Community Center. The pantry is open on Mondays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and anyone with a UConn ID can swipe in and utilize the pantry as a source of nonperishable food items as well as some options for produce and toiletries. Beyond this on-campus option, there are also local pantries and a swipe donation program that students can use through the Dean of Students Office. The existence and continued use of these resources proves the need among the UConn community for food assistance. It also further highlights the necessity of the UConn administration taking significant steps to truly eliminate, rather than reduce, food insecurity among students.
Despite undertaking multi-million dollar construction projects such as The Northwest Science Quad, the Toscano Ice Forum and the new south campus dorm buildings and dining hall, the university has refused to invest their money to seriously address food insecurity.
It should go without saying that every single student at UConn deserves to be sufficiently fed. However, UConn’s commitment to that deserves to be put under further scrutiny. For too long, the administration has taken a very important issue that impacts its students and has given it to a body that does not have the scope necessary to adequately address the problem. It’s not to say that pop up pantries and cooking classes are not a good step towards tackling the problem. But the continuing deferral of food insecurity issues to USG by administration just further highlights the complacency of UConn’s administration towards solving the problem.