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Description
Research has shown that food insecurity can negatively affect academic performance. School lunch programs have been implemented in K-12 schools in efforts to tackle this issue. Within recent years, college students have also expressed being food insecure. The research available is minimal, but national, state, and campus data indicate that food insecurity is prevalent among campuses and require attention. The research that has explored food insecurity on college and university campuses provides a student perspective. The present study aims to contribute to the research by examining campus personnel’s perspectives on how the California State University (CSU) campuses are identifying and addressing food insecurity among their campuses, and what barriers they are facing in addressing the need. This study highlights the findings from in-depth interviews (n=21) with faculty, staff, and administrators involved in their respective campuses’ food insecurity programming. The participants were selected through the following criteria: being listed as the point of contact for student affairs issues generally; or being listed as point of contact for food options for food insecure students on a CSU campus as provided by the CSU study released in 2015. The participants represented 16 CSU Hispanic Serving Institutions and diverse roles and responsibilities. The study documented the steps CSU campuses have taken in recent years to expand their services to include a variety of food assistance initiatives, including food pantries/shelves, development of technology such as a phone app, meal vouchers/meal sharing programs, CalFresh assistance, pop-up pantries/food distributions, and a garden/farm. At the campus level, these initiatives have been undertaken in widely differing ways. To demonstrate the distinct patterns of campus responses to food insecurity, this study presents a typology of response efforts: campus-led efforts, auxiliary-led efforts, staff-led, and donor- led efforts. Themes discussed include how food insecurity has been identified on CSU campuses, how food assistance programs have evolved on CSU campuses, the type of food assistance programs currently offered, and barriers campuses have faced in addressing food insecurity needs. Implications of this study’s findings for future CSU initiatives, including for culturally responsive efforts for migrant students from Latin American countries in particular, are discussed.
