Uniting Town and Gown and Food
Food brings people together-- and what better way to connect colleges with their communities?
As a college student with a sweet spot for my school’s town, I have lamented how difficult it can be to spend time in the city despite the proximity and desire. I run through the city and take in the sights, I stop at the farmer’s market when I can, but I rarely (a handful of times in my two years there), go downtown in the evening for a meal. The problem is clear, and while elements of it might be unique to Duke, I believe the lesson holds for several schools with underwhelming student-city relationships. Duke’s meal plan is restricted to campus dining.
Well duh, you might think, isn’t that the point of a meal plan? Yes and no. The point of a school’s meal plan is to feed its students, presumably via a school’s dining hall. But that does not mean that a meal plan can’t be used for greater goals. If students come to college and find themselves in more of a bubble than before they started, the college is failing to meet one of its obligations to mentor students for their life post-schooling. If learning is restricted to reading and writing within the school day and does not incentivize understanding and enjoying the world beyond the campus walls, something is missing.
Not all of the blame can be put on the school. Students could make a better effort on their own to get off campus. Still, the way the Duke meal plan is designed, every incentive to eat elsewhere is stacked against a student. The food is very good. And the meal plan is a pre-paid certificate to eat very good food every day. It is harder, then, to rationalize leaving campus and spending additional money elsewhere.
For these reasons, Duke and other schools that experience a disconnect between their student body and the surrounding community could benefit from following in the footsteps of schools like Vanderbilt and their “Taste of Nashville” program. Using their meal card like a debit card, students can eat at more than forty local restaurants (and a few franchises) within walking distance of campus.
Programs like these solve all the issues posed previously by eliminating the disincentives—existing access to good food, hefty advance deposit on said food—to leave campus. All, that is, except one. Transportation is still an issue, as Duke, especially Duke’s West campus, is well-secluded from Durham’s downtown. The walk—about a mile and a half—is just outside the range of what feels doable.
Currently, only one bus connects Duke’s west campus to downtown Durham. One bus. Home to the largest population of living, breathing, and buying adults who don’t own cars, college towns are arguably one of the best types of cities for reliable bus systems. Yet in the past few years, the options for bussing between Duke and downtown have dwindled to a singular bus once every hour. Small voices on campus have asked that the bus routes of the past return, but the momentum isn’t there.
Expanding the dining options of students to include the many restaurants Durham’s downtown boasts would create the necessary momentum to reinstitute public transportation routes and reinstate Durham as one of the integral pieces of the Duke education. Encouraged to spend more time in Durham, Duke students could take better advantage of all Durham has to offer and become real neighbors in their community.
Adeleine Geitner is a rising senior at Duke University studying public policy and economics. She is the Duke Urban Studies Initiative Fellow on Sprawl Repair and Nodal Development.
 |
|