Community-Based Social Sustainability:Developing and Teaching a Senior Capstone Seminar

in Food Justice

Why Food Justice?

“The richest 300 people on Earth have more money than the poorest 3 billion”

--“Global Wealth Inequality” (July, 2013 YouTube video) 

Seniors are not First-Year Students (I teach them too) Intro to Global Sustainability: Summer 2015

It Started with this Book– and a Sabbatical

Gottlieb’s concept of “dominant food system”• As food justice scholar Robert Gottlieb states it, the nature of this

dominant food system—that is, the sum of activities and relationships that constitute various food pathways from seed to table and that influence how and why and what we eat—resides at the center of this debate. • The dominant food system that shapes these activities and

relationships is global in scope and influence. It involves some of the largest bureaucracies (UN/USDA) and corporations (ADM/Cargill/Monsanto) in the world and has a powerful effect on economies, human health, and the environment.

My Sabbatical Theme:“Food Across the Liberal Arts Curriculum”Everyone had a different idea of what this might look likeMy ideas evolved over time as I attended food and hunger events and meetings around IowaInitially I was thinking “Food Politics” (as a Political Scientist)

Social Justice and Human Rights Soon Emerged as my “Central” Focus

I began to learn things…• I learned that SNAP recipients could use

their benefits to purchase food and seeds and plants at farmers’ markets.

• I read an AARP-United Way of Iowa report on hunger and food security among elderly Iowans

• My church was in the early months of establishing the southern Marion County Mobile Food Pantry outreach program and I got involved

• I learned that the Pella Food Shelf was serving over 1,000 clients every week…blew away the image of “rich, prosperous Pella”

It helps to be married to a socially committed organic farmer:

In 2013, Prairie Roots Farm signed up for the IDALS Wireless EBT program, in order to accept SNAP cards at the Pella Farmers MarketWe also accept WIC and Senior Nutrition coupons Helping out at the markets really opened my eyes to food and food insecurity in a very powerful way

Previous Food-Ag. Teaching Experiences:Central College Abroad- Yucatan, Mexico (1988 and 1994):• Team-Taught with Dr. Louise Z:

“World Food Issues: Agriculture, Population and the Environment”

Component of a new Environmental Policy course for our new ES Major (1992)

• “Global Environmental Politics” offered ever since…now POLS 242 “Global Sustainability”

I did some community-based service learning:• At Will Allen’s amazing Growing Power urban farming and education

initiative in Milwaukee, my hometown:

I did a three-day spiritual retreat

• With some inspiring Catholic sisters at Benedictine Women of Madison, a LEED Platinum, food justice-role modeling monastery:

I watched a lot of films:

• Including “A Place at the Table”

And “Viva la Causa”

• The story of Cesar Chavez and the history of the United Farm Workers

Central’s Commitment to Sustainability Education• LAS 410 Senior Capstone Seminar: Food Justice (GS)• GS-designated courses satisfy our Global Sustainability Graduation Core Requirement

• Voted-in unanimously by Central College Faculty in 2010

• Backed by engaged faculty members and programs across the curriculum

• Faculty Training and Curriculum Development Workshops (2010, 2015)

• Over 35 participants from across 14 departments

• New and transformed courses created from Freshman through Senior level

• Some courses involve team-teaching

• Some courses include an abroad component

• Many courses involve embedded community-based service learning components

I didn’t want just another classroom-based food and agriculture course:

• A significant community-based service-learning component• Capacity-building for community partners, not direct client service• Build upon seniors’ discipline-specific knowledge and skills• Build upon seniors’ previous community-based learning• Address expressed needs and goals of community partners• Connect participatory action research with scholarly research • Bring community partner organizations into the seminar• Engage in significant peer-to-peer education: a learning community

LAS 410 Student Learning Outcomes:• Reason critically and coherently across disciplines

• Engage in advanced, ethical, and independent inquiry

• Reflect on how their education will inform their professional, civic, and personal lives

GS Core Courses Student Learning Outcomes:• Understand ways human systems affect ecological systems• Collaborate locally in service of sustainability• Articulate the relationship between poverty, social justice, and

ecological destruction• Articulate a vision for or elements of a just, sustainable society• Articulate a vision for or elements of sustainable communities• Identify and articulate ethical frameworks (equity, justice, rights)• Identify and articulate core values and how to align them with

attitudes and behaviors in daily living

Social Justice Dimensions of Food Systems:• seeking to understand the human rights implications of food we will examine:

• Impacts of food on economic life, communities, ecosystem and human health• Roles of government through public policy and regulation• Roles of corporations and industry interest groups• Nature and impacts of the growing local-sustainable agriculture movement• How food is grown and processed• How food is accessed• What and how we eat• How food has become global• Political debates around food

Common Readings:

• Peter Pringle, Ed. A Place at the Table: The Crisis of 49 Million Hungry Americans and How to Solve it (2013)

• Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi, Food Justice: Transforming the Food System, 2nd edition (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012)

• Will Allen, The Good Food Revolution, (New York: Gotham Books, 2012)

• Vandana Shiva, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Crisis, (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2008)

Course Description:

This course is about the intersection of food, agriculture, and human rights mediated through political, economic, and social systems. It is integrative and transdisciplinary, in the sense that such a complex, multifaceted issue can best be approached and understood through the lenses of many disciplines, including:• Politics, government and public policy• Sustainable development• Global trade and agriculture• Agro-ecology• Food anthropology• Urban sociology

Course Approach:

• As food justice scholar Robert Gottlieb states it, the nature of this dominant food system—that is, the sum of activities and relationships that constitute various food pathways from seed to table and that influence how and why and what we eat—resides at the center of this debate. The dominant food system that shapes these activities and relationships is global in scope and influence. It involves some of the largest bureaucracies (UN/USDA) and corporations (ADM/Cargill/Monsanto) in the world and has a powerful effect on economies, human health, and the environment.• • In this seminar we will be examining dominant food systems (Pella/Iowa/USA/Global)

as well as food justice activists and social groups who are attempting to reform, change, or create alternatives. Part of our collective task is to locate, experience, and evaluate what they are saying and doing about food justice and sustainability issues, out in the real world.

Rationale:

• You will be graduating and living within dominant global, national, and local food systems which are unsustainable as well as unjust, in terms of meeting basic human needs—and rights—to food.

• President Obama has pledged to work to eliminate child hunger in this country by 2015. Living in a country of unprecedented food abundance, we still have 49 million Americans on food stamps and severe pockets of hunger and malnutrition. Hunger and food insecurity today are greater than a generation ago.

• Globally, the situation is much worse in some areas—Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, and slowly improving in other areas—Brazil, Ghana, Mexico, are notable examples.

• Locally, there are an increasing number of vibrant, successful, and globally sustainable alternative food system models and community-based initiatives, including many in Iowa, for us to explore, learn about, and connect with.

Course Goals:

• The intention is to work at raising our own individual awareness while collectively helping to empower local communities with practical knowledge, civic engagement opportunities, and community organizing tools to engage in the increasingly vital work of creating more just and sustainable global, national, and local food systems, and thereby, a more socially just and sustainable world. • Building and strengthening holistic partnerships with community

partner organizations and individuals working towards food justice and sustainability

Developmental and Evaluative Assessments via Writing and Reflection :

• Weekly online reflective journaling• Weekly short question/prompt responses based on films, readings• 3-5 page critical review of Will Allen’s The Good Food Revolution• 6-8 page final research report: “wherein you combine your

community-based capacity-building and action research experience with academic research results that relate to what you see as the food justice aspects of your community partner’s work.”• Rotating student-led discussions on “food in the news”

Seminar Assignments and Graded Work:Seminar Contribution-Participation: 50% of grade• Reading, film, event/speaker reviews (15)• In-class writings, short papers (10)• Food in the news (5)• Topic-Issue Groups (15)• Web Presentations (5) Community-Based Participatory Research/Writing Project: 30% of grade • Will Allen Critical Book Review:10% of grade• Final Research Essay/Reflection: 10% of grade

___________100%

18 Seniors, With a Variety of Majors and Career Interests:

• Political Science• Economics• Art• Elementary Education• Athletic Training• Environmental Studies• Business Management• Exercise Science• English

Student Working Groups:

• Students self-organized into six collaborative working groups :

• how food is grown: organic versus conventional methods• USDA food programs (SNAP, WIC, School Meals)• global trade in agricultural commodities• food charities and nonprofits• food marketing to children• Food technology: processing/distribution to retailers and restaurants

Community Partner Presentations to the Seminar:

• Pella Food Pantry (Melissa)• Second Reformed Church’s Mobile “Food Share” Programs (Dale,

Ginny, Jon)• LSI “Global Greens” Refugee Gardening-Marketing Program (Hilary)• Des Moines-USAFood Corps and School Gardens Program (Marlie)• Eat Greater Des Moines and DMARC Programs (Aubrey-Linda)• Meskwaki Nation, “Food Sovereignty Initiatives” (Vazquez-Johnson)• Luther College’s Innovative Food Education Initiatives (Maren)• A globally-aware, large-scale, conventional Iowa soybean farmer (Roy)

Central’s Amazing Center for Community-Based Learning: Matching Students to Community Partners for Action-Research

• Director Cheri Doane is a Force of Nature

Some Notable Matches:

• Rachel and DMARC (GIS mapping of food deserts in Des Moines)

Schyler and Farm to Table Procurement for Pine Oak Farm, Harlan, IA

Jordan: Work of Our Hands Store and Central’s Fair Trade Week

L J and Marion County Senior Nutrition

Kalli at Jill and Shaun’s Blue Gate Farms, Marion Co., IA

Katie and CFUM in Des Moines, Iowa

Ensuring Food Justice for Future Generations

Everywhere

Is it Time for Lunch?

Questions?