This school year, West campus students and faculty have the munchies.
“Much Ado About Food,” the campus theme for the fall and spring semesters, was chosen in connection with the West campus freshman summer reading requirement, “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan. The book raises questions on what you’re eating, if it’s been altered and how to go back to healthy eating.
This is the first themed school year for the West campus, which involves discussions and presentations about the selected topic.
West campus vice president and dean of the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Elizabeth Langland has seen freshmen summer reading programs at other universities. Langland and others wanted to create a yearlong focus for the campus.
“Food just affects every aspect of our lives, so that’s how we came up with the theme this year,” Langland said.
The goal was to create dialogue between students and faculty, and to also build a program around the book, she said.
One of the year’s events is ThinK, a series of lectures and films about food. The event will take place every Thursday in the Kiva Lecture Hall. “ThinK” is an abbreviation for “Thursdays in Kiva.”
Along with the ThinK series, the West campus is starting a community garden and doing community-supported agriculture with the Crooked Skies Farm, in which students are purchasing a basket of food to encourage healthy eating and buying from a local market, Langland said.
“This is something that the whole campus has in common,” she said. “It’s a subject outside of [students’] classes.”
Political science sophomore Mason Hunt, a member of the West campus student government, has been involved in the planning process, getting more of a student perspective for the events and what they’d like to see.
“Not everything is academic,” Hunt said. “The students are our main priority.”
Last week was the kick-off event for ThinK with ASU’s Engrained Chef Jerome Fressinier. He showed students how to prepare simple food like pesto, salsa and pasta that students can prepare in Las Casas, a West campus residential hall, Hunt said.
Hunt said he believes that even though the project is aimed at freshmen, that other students, faculty and West Valley residents could also be involved and they’d benefit from it.
There will be various guest speakers, from faculty to Gene Baur, author of “Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food.”
Barbara Tinsley, psychology professor, has been finding faculty members to speak about their research in food.
“We have one faculty member speaking about her obesity research,” Tinsley said.
Psychology sophomore Micaela Gamboa attended last week’s event and said she benefited a lot from it.
“I learned that your vegetable should be super fresh, not even a day old,” Gamboa said.
She also helps out with the freshman events and said that there’s never been a turnout like there was last Thursday.
By the end of this year, a theme for next year will be chosen and the West campus hopes to continue doing this in the future, Langland said.
“Super Size Me,” a documentary about a man who ate McDonald’s for every meal for a month, will be playing Thursday at 6 p.m. and discussion and questions will follow.
Reach the reporter at mpareval@asu.edu.
