The Huntington News April 16, 2021
The independent student newspaper of the Northeastern community
@HuntNewsNU
NU community organizes to alleviate food insecurity Illustration by Devin Raynor
By Marta Hill | Campus Editor When Northeastern Mutual Aid first started hosting weekly food pantries last fall, they only saw 30 to 40 people a week. Now, around 200 people from the Northeastern community come to the pop-up pantry a week, with an all-time high of more than 350 people last week according to data collected by Mutual Aid. “You can’t [focus on studying] if your basic needs aren’t covered,” said Harrison Garcia, a third-year double major in cell and molecular biology and business administration and a coordinator for NU Mutual Aid, a student organization that works to counteract food insecurity. Though NU Mutual Aid, or Mutual Aid, doesn’t just address food insecurity, a lot of their work centers on providing good, healthy food to the Northeastern community. Garcia said the increase in participation in their pop-up pantries indicates that the issue of food insecurity isn’t going anywhere and has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Food insecurity is defined as the “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate or safe food” by The Hope Center, a research center focused on college students. According to a 2019 report, approximately 41% of students at four-year institutions experience food insecurity. Northeastern students living in first-year residence halls are required to purchase a seven-, 12- or 17-mealper-week plan, and meals do not roll over from week-to-week. The average price of meal plans across the country is $2,250 per semester, but Northeastern’s cheapest meal plan, with only seven meals-per-week, costs $2,330 per semester. The unlimited meal plan at Northeastern costs $4,245 per semester, while Boston University’s unlimited plan costs $3,100 a semester, or $6,200 per year. Many students and organizations are looking at food insecurity on campus, and Garcia was involved in
running one survey of Northeastern students regarding food insecurity last semester. “We found that a little bit over half of all students at Northeastern did not always have enough money for food each week, so that is very concerning,” Garcia said. Alysa Gerlach, vice president and assistant treasurer of finance, who oversees dining at Northeastern, said she can’t work to make changes without having concrete, achievable ideas people want to see. “I’ve been overseeing dining now for a year and a half, and, in that time frame, I have asked this question multiple times from my colleagues in student affairs, other students when I get an opportunity and nobody can really tell me what is it that you want versus what is it that we have,” Gerlach said. The recent Student Priority Survey run by Student Government Association, or SGA, and the Center for Student Involvement featured several questions regarding food insecurity. Out of 1225 respondents, 948 people, or 77.39%, indicated that they had cut the size of their meals or skipped meals because they didn’t have enough money. Another question asked if students would use a food pantry if it were available on campus and they did not have sufficient resources, and the response was overwhelming — 87.76% or 1075 respondents indicated that a food pantry would be a useful resource if they were ever in need of food. How students are tackling the issue Joshua Sisman, the communications director for Young Democratic Socialists of America, or YDSA, co-sponsored a referendum that addresses food insecurity on campus, proposing changes to make meal plans more affordable for students. The referendum aims to address the higher-than-aver-
age price of Northeastern’s meal plan. It proposed a plan where Northeastern guarantees three meals a day for students at a rate of at least 24% less than current plans. “I regret not writing the referendum to say ‘guarantee students a meal plan for free,’” said Sisman, a second-year political science and economics combined major. “When we were talking about drafting the referenda, we were trying to be as bold as possible also considering what was feasible and what we had the most evidence and precedents to base our referendum off of.” The referendum went before SGA in early 2021 and then was on the ballot for all students to vote on in late March. It passed with 3,988 votes, or 86% of the vote. Ioanna Ploumi, who co-sponsored the referendum, said attending Northeastern and living in Boston is already expensive, so cutting costs in places like the meal plan would make Northeastern more accessible. “The goal, of course, is eliminating food insecurity on campus and again, it’s an issue of diversity and inclusion — we want to make sure that the university’s as accessible as possible,” said Ploumi, a second-year biology and political science combined major. While the referendum was being debated in SGA, second-year mechanical engineering and political science double major Sebastian Chavéz expressed his reservations with the referendum. As part of his job as vice president for student services, Chavéz coordinates the Food Advisory Board, a group open to all students that meets monthly with staff members from dining to discuss topics related to dining at Northeastern. Chavéz said he feels the Northeastern community needs to address food insecurity, but that the solution proposed by the referendum is not feasible. “The difficulty for me comes with knowing that there is such an issue on our campus, and knowing that this issue does exist, and knowing that many faculty FOOD, on Page 2
International student-athletes navigate the American athletic dream By Mihiro Shimano Sports Editor For Swedish senior swimmer Matilda Weiler, it was an easy choice to decide to pursue swimming in college in the United States. From the get-go, she was enrolled in an athletic high school in her hometown of Helsingborg, Sweden, where she trained and competed on the national level. All of this led up to Weiler
transitioning to collegiate swimming in the United States, since there are no college athletics in Swedish universities. “Swimming in America has always been a dream,” Weiler said. There are many athletes like Weiler who envision coming to the United States to play at the collegiate level — for many, it serves as a pipeline to professionally pursue their sport in the future. The number of interna-
tional students who seek this opportunity is growing every year. In 2018, NCAA Research found that international student-athletes made up 12.1% of all first-year Division I student-athletes, compared to 9.5% in 2013, just five years before. Northeastern University currently has approximately 100 international student-athletes, which constitutes 20-22% of the entire program, said associate assistant director for com-
munications Scott MacDonald. “We love having international student-athletes,” said Regina Sullivan, Northeastern’s deputy athletics director. “It adds an element of diversity, and it adds a breadth and depth to the experience. The choice they make [to come to the United States] is intentional, so they tend to be very committed in the classroom and other ways.” For Weiler, Northeastern and its
education was also an important factor in deciding to pursue swimming in the United States. “It helped me to know what I wanted to focus on because for me, the actual school has always been important to me as well,” she said. “It was important to find a school where I can thrive academically as well as in athletics.” Other Northeastern international student-athletes have also echoed INTERNATIONAL, on Page 5