Webinar: Higher Education Foodscapes as Sites of Action and Transformation

This webinar presents an in-depth look at foodscapes in higher education. Initially it will look at defining both campus foodscapes and higher education foodscapes and then detail various aspects of these critical areas of campus sustainability. This webinar draws on the presenter’s doctoral research, completed in 2022, Campus Foodscapes as Sites of Transformation: Mapping Policy and Projects in US Universities Envisioning Just, Sustainable, and Healthy Food Systems. It will introduce the methods used in this research, including the development of an extensive data set from AASHE STARS reports on food and dining, campus visits and in-depth interviews with practitioners. This presentation will cover the following areas in detail, supported by detailed maps illustrating each area, to better understand the complex ecosystem of activities, policies, projects and stakeholders around campus and higher education foodscapes:

Elements of Campus Foodscapes
Basic Needs, Certification, Curriculum & Research, Dining Services Programs and Activities, Food Distribution, Health, Institutional and Community Partnerships, Policy and Governance, Producing Food on Campus, Student Leadership and Participation, Supporting Local Food, and Waste.)
Stakeholders in US Higher Education Foodscapes’
Stakeholders categorised by the types of organiztions and mechanisms that define each group, including professional associations, issues-based networks, research institutes and mechanisms such as conferences and pledges and commitments.
‘Food and Sustainability in Higher Education: Communities of Practice Across Scales’
Organizations operating as communities of practice, connecting together practitioners working in various food-related categories organized from on-campus networks, through to national and international scales
Key external influences on higher education foodscapes
Networks formed around four major organizations working in and with campus foodscapes: Real Food Generation, Farm to Institution New England, Cool Food Pledge and Menus of Change University Research Collaborative.
This will be supported by insights from campus practitioners and a series of exemplar projects happening on individual college campuses addressing the many complex challenges in the food system. This presentation will conclude with an analysis of the various activities and actors in higher education foodscape and a discussion of how greater awareness of the complexity of campus foodscapes might help to better connect together those working to make change within their own institutional contexts and how to connect together various communities of practice under a holistic ‘food systems’ framework.