Tulane designated a hunger-free campus
Food insecurity on college campuses is a serious problem, affecting approximately 29% of students at four-year colleges and 38% at two-year schools, according to national studies.
Those statistics have prompted the Louisiana Board of Regents to designate every public college and four private colleges in Louisiana, including Tulane University, as hunger-free campuses.
To qualify for the designation, schools must establish a Hunger-Free Task Force, inform students who receive need-based aid of their potential eligibility to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and hold or participate in at least one anti-hunger awareness event each academic year. Additionally, they must assess the need to provide access to on-campus food distribution and on- or off-campus food pantries.
“I am proud to see the tremendous campus response to this designation, which signals both their understanding of the problem and their commitment to address it.”
Kim Hunter Reed, Louisiana's commissioner of higher education
The Tulane student group Students Against Food Insecurity recently started a food pantry at Chapel of the Holy Spirit, just off Broadway Street across from campus. The School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine runs a food pantry at the Tidewater Building.
Tulane’s Hunger-Free Campus Task Force is being chaired by Catherine Tyner, assistant dean of students in the Division of Student Affairs. The task force includes undergraduate and graduate students as well as representatives from the Center for Academic Equity, Office of Financial Aid, Center for Public Service, among many others.
Louisiana’s hunger-free campus program was created in 2022 by Act 719, which was sponsored by state Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, a former public school teacher.
In addition to Tulane, the three other private universities that received the hunger-free campus designation are Centenary College of Louisiana, Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University and Loyola University New Orleans.
