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Boston University has seven certified restaurants (more than any other college or university) and the GRA has verified the institution has the greenest food court in the nation.
The number of U.S. colleges offering gluten-free dining options is rising, as more people learn about the seriousness of celiac disease, says Chris Rich, vice president of development for the Gluten Intolerance Group.
Colleges and universities taking extra care to improve the safety and quality of life for students with food allergies can participate in the Food Allergy Research & Education’s College Food Allergy Program, which launched in 2014.
In 2015, FARE chose 12 colleges nationwide to participate in a pilot program, and in 2016 the organization announced the expansion of the program to 23 additional institutions.
One of the overall goals is improving access for potential students and parents to information about food allergy accommodation efforts at colleges and universities.
Designed by the company Freight Farms, the hydroponic lettuce farm inside a shipping container at Stony Brook University in New York uses 90 percent less water than traditional growing methods to provide an acre’s worth of leafy greens to campus dining halls.
Students use farm-management technologies such as cloud-synced growth data and a smartphone app to control lighting.
After years of working with multiple food service vendors and local restaurants, Carnegie Mellon University brought fast-casual bakery chain Au Bon Pain to campus. The school’s first experience with a national restaurant franchise, it was a 12-month process from the brainstorming phase to opening the doors to hungry students.
When a trio of students at Christopher Newport University in Virginia wanted to start a program to collect leftover food from the dining halls each night and deliver it to a rescue mission, the director of the university’s dining services had some questions.
Drumming up support for a program where food service gives back can involve highlighting a prominent, well-loved individual within campus dining.
Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College in Minnesota, for example, named a food pantry after the school’s first housing director, Bruce Carlson, who died unexpectedly in 2010.
More than 22 million pounds of uneaten food is thrown away on college campuses each year, according to Food Recovery Network, a student-driven nonprofit dedicated to reducing food waste and hunger at higher education institutions.
A single college student generates an average 142 pounds of food waste per year, according to Recycling Works, a Massachusetts recycling assistance program.
Regardless of the size of the staff or office, efficient campus card programs share several best practices: A focus on customer service, cutting-edge technology and collaboration with the campus community and beyond.
Colleges and universities that provide fresh, high-quality food do more than please students—offering good food is also good business. Here are several ways dining program leaders can increase satisfaction and meal plan participation while keeping operating costs stable.
While renovating the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, workers found a “chemical hearth” hidden behind the walls.
It turned out to have been part of an early science classroom commissioned by university founder Thomas Jefferson. The room, likely sealed in the mid-1800s, survived a fire in 1895 that destroyed much of the building’s interior.
The push for campuswide sustainability and a fresh commitment to student health drive institutions to rethink their dining strategies. This might mean buying more food from local farmers and better educating students about their dietary habits.
Along those lines, Stanford University is the first higher ed institution in the nation to earn the United States Healthful Food Council’s REAL certification—an acronym for Responsible (nutrition), Epicurean (preparation), Agricultural (sourcing) and Leadership.
A pair of draft horses often plows the campus farm at Sterling College. Sterling does have tractors—its agriculture students have to learn how to use all varieties of equipment—but the energy-saving horses are just one step in the Vermont school’s extensive and award-winning sustainable dining program.
The farm produces about 20 percent of the food consumed in the college’s dining hall.
At the drop of a hat, we run down to the grocery store to grab food and water - never thinking these consumables are actually vulnerable to the threat of agroterrorism. Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, put it this way "For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do.”
