Paul Woodward Becerra

In the wake of Meatless Mondays, a growing vegan movement, and a public investment in health and environmental consciousness, the number of people adopting a vegan diet has grown dramatically in the last decade.
Now, over 16 million people in the U.S. identify as vegan or vegetarian and countless others strive to reduce their meat consumption, placing a mounting pressure on our institutions of higher education to consistently serve quality plant-based foods.
How does Hood College stack up in providing vegan options? The popular “PETA College Report Card”, a system of rating colleges based on their vegan menu offerings, hasn’t been completed for the small school.
For any campus, having multiple food outlets makes the task of assigning ratings difficult — Hood’s campus has the Dining Hall, Grilleworks, and Peet’s Coffee, all offering different menus, and with them, varying levels of food-friendliness.

Hood’s Coblentz Dining Hall has a staff and menu managed by Aramark, the Philadelphia food-service company that handles feeding everyone from Wal-Mart’s employees to people at the ball game. Just this year, they’ve introduced over 500 new vegan options to colleges and, amazingly, managed to breach the often meat-centric world of sports with vegetarian and vegan baseball concessions.
Highlights of the Dining Hall are a Silk soymilk dispenser, an always-available vegan entrée (usually with two vegan side dishes), and a dedicated mini-fridge with vegan condiments like parmesan, butter, cream cheese, and mayonnaise. Along with a good selection of fresh fruits and vegetables at the salad bar, anyone eating vegan can get a healthy meal when they want to.
At the entrance of the Dining Hall, an Aramark-supplied placard sits, hidden behind waffle irons. It reads “Our Commitments,” listing the ethos of the company. A graphic of peas peeks out from the top, set next to the text “We provide a vegetarian friendly environment with a variety of vegetarian or vegan choices.”

For Jen Clark, the head of Dining Services at Hood College, finding the demographic is hard. “One thing we like to know is the amount of people that we’re catering to . . . I don’t know how many vegans are on Hood’s campus.” However, this doesn’t stop her from doing her best.

“I am trying to make sure that for every meal, we have options,” she stated proudly, noting that some of the larger clients for Aramark’s dining services have their own vegan facilities.
Since she came into service as the director Hood’s Dining Services, Jen has implemented landmark changes. She’s instituted Aramark policies such as Meatless Mondays, and desserts free of animal products. Even better, she’s putting in the legwork to create her own programs to make sure students are represented.

Starting this year, Jen started “Dine with the Director”, a monthly meeting where students can provide criticism and feedback about on-campus food to Jen, which she uses to make changes in their interest. This came when she learned about the overwhelming number students who shared their feelings about on-food campus on social media: she wanted to close the open feedback loop that didn’t include the party that counted most. The program is having some trouble getting traction, but she’s not deterred.
All in all, the dining experience is steadily improving for vegans on campus at Hood College. Even when addressing the many areas that need improvement, Jen gave a smile and said “I’m working on it.”