McMaster University should adopt cost-based pricing for campus food, prioritizing student well-being over profits to make healthy eating accessible for all
Food insecurity has been an ongoing concern in Hamilton for years, affecting various communities within the city, including university students at McMaster.
The rising costs of living have made it increasingly challenging for students to access affordable, nutritious meals. Addressing this issue introduces the idea of selling food at cost, instead of profit. A pricing model that prioritizes affordability, promoting well-being and equitable access.
As a university student, it is not uncommon to find yourself in a rush, with cooking being the last thing on your mind. Grabbing a quick and convenient meal on campus might seem like the perfect solution, until you are met with a big price for a decent meal. The cost of often sub-par meal options on campus leaves students choosing between affordability and hunger.
Grabbing a quick and convenient meal on campus might seem like the perfect solution, until you are met with a big price for a decent meal. The cost of often sub-par meal options on campus leaves students choosing between affordability and hunger.
A 2021 food experience survey conducted among McMaster undergraduates revealed significant levels of food insecurity on campus. The report found that 35.9 per cent of students experienced moderate food insecurity, while 23.2 per cent faced severe food insecurity. Common challenges reported by students included running out of food before having money to buy more, skipping meals due to unaffordability and resorting to low-cost alternatives to manage tight budgets.
McMaster can combat food insecurity among students and set the standard for student well-being. Food should be sold at cost instead of at a profit to increase affordability and promote healthier eating habits across campus.
Relying on student-based initiatives like the Food Collective Centre and Hamilton food banks is simply avoiding the root issue. A cost-based model would provide a more sustainable long-term solution to ensure affordable access to nutrition for students while paying living wages to the hospitality team.
A cost-based model would provide a more sustainable long-term solution to ensure affordable access to nutrition for students while paying living wages to the hospitality team.
A change like this would be monumental for students, contributing to the well-being of the McMaster community. Good nutrition is fundamental for academic success, and ensuring that students ca nourish themselves properly this would allow students to concentrate and manage stress effectively. It could also create an environment of equity where students from systematically challenging backgrounds could have a better living experience as students.
As McMaster continues to dedicate resources to advancing education and research, they should prioritize generating profits from these key areas. A cost-based pricing system for food would instead allow students to focus on their education instead of fuelling their financial stress. This model would not only contribute to our community, but could also enhance the university's overall productivity, its impact as an institute for social progress and the success and wellbeing of its students.
By: Eden Wondmeneh
As a first-year student living on residence, I had to cough up an outrageous amount of money for a mediocre living experience.
Following a $600 residence deposit, residence can cost anywhere from $5,800 to $8,825, not including the additional, mandatory cost of a meal plan that ranges from $2,975 to $4,735.
Separate from the fees, incoming students wishing to have a guaranteed residence space on-campus must achieve, at minimum, an 81.5 per cent in their senior year of high school.
It’s as if an acceptance to McMaster is not enough to attend the university, with residence being the only option for many out-of-province students.
Even if you find yourself as one of the almost 3700 students living on McMaster residence, you are expected to move out promptly after your final exam in April. In fact, you are expected to leave residence by 3:00 p.m. on the very next day.
With the average cost of living at Mac being just under $12,000, this deadline does not fit with what students have paid for. It likely exists in order to stagger students’ departure as a way to prevent chaos and large wait times, but for many students it’s an impossible deadline to meet.
As it is an odd request for students to pack up their entire dorm so quickly after their final exams, students with ‘legitimate’ reasons for not being able to meet the deadline can apply for an extension.
Those that can apply for this extension are international and out-of-province students with travel requirements, those with exceptional circumstances or those with academic requirements to fulfill like a new exam or deferred lab. But even if a student has one of these ‘legitimate’ reasons, there is still a chance that the extension won’t be granted.
Ultimately, the terms of the extension application are made so that students who have assignment accommodations, need time before their new lease or sublet agreements take affect, have extracurricular commitments or have storage needs till the end of term have no options and are scrambling to find alternative accommodations.
It’s as if these aren’t legitimate reasons to need to stay in a dorm room, that you have already paid for, until the official end of term.
I am currently struggling to figure out what to do come the end of term. My exams happen to fall on the earlier spectrum of exam season, and since my family is scattered across America during my assigned move-out date, I’m stuck between an alarmingly expensive taxi ride back home or a cheaper but nightmarish, impossible GO bus trip with my 40 pieces of luggage.
My situation is much easier to deal with than those who are from out of town or students with accessibility accommodations, who need to stay in Hamilton for a few days or weeks extra.
The entire purpose of residence is to make university life, both academic and social, accessible and convenient for students; a goal that the move-out policy directly opposes.
Students shouldn’t have to request an extension at all, but for the sake of staggering departure times, students should be able to request and receive an extension for a much broader list of reasons than that which currently exists.
In doing so, McMaster can make exam season a little less strenuous for the students who paid to live on-campus until the end of term.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
Following recent snowstorms that deposited as much as 40 cm onto Hamilton streets, some Hamilton residents are using social media to bring attention to the issue of snow-covered residential sidewalks.
Currently, residents are expected to clear snow from their sidewalks within 24 hours of a “snow event.” If residents fail to comply, the city will issue a 24-hour “Notice to Comply,” followed by possible inspection and a contracting fee for the homeowner.
However, residents say both residential and city sidewalks are still not being cleared, either by residents or by the city.
The Disability Justice Network of Ontario has encouraged residents to participate in the “Snow and Tell” campaign by tweeting out pictures of snow or ice-covered roads and sidewalks using the hashtag #AODAfail, referring to the Accessibility for Ontarians for Disabilities Act.
https://twitter.com/VicBick/status/1087879002092646401
McMaster student and local community organizer Sophie Geffros supports the campaigns and says it a serious issue of accessibility and justice.
Geffros uses a wheelchair and knows how especially difficult it can be for those who use mobility devices to navigate through snow-covered streets.
“It's people who use mobility devices. It's people with strollers. And it's older folks. People end up on the street. If you go on any street after a major storm, you'll see people in wheelchairs and with buggies on the street with cars because the sidewalks just aren't clear,” Geffros said.
https://twitter.com/sgeffros/status/1087384392866123778
Snow-covered sidewalks also affect the ability for people, especially those who use mobility devices, to access public transit.
“Even when snow has been cleared, often times when it gets cleared, it gets piled on curb cuts and piled near bus stops and all these places that are that are vital to people with disabilities,” Geffros said.
https://twitter.com/craig_burley/status/1088798476081741824
Geffros sees the need for clearing sidewalks as non-negotiable.
“By treating our sidewalk network as not a network but hundreds of individual tiny chunks of sidewalk, it means that if there's a breakdown at any point in that network, I can't get around,” Geffros said. “If every single sidewalk on my street is shoveled but one isn't, I can't use that entire sidewalk. We need to think of it as a vital service in the same way that we think of road snow clearance as a vital service.”
Public awareness about the issue may push city council.
Some councillors have expressed support for a city-run snow clearing service, including Ward 1 councillor Maureen Wilson and Ward 3 councillor Nrinder Nann.
I just don’t find it all that complicated. Cities are for people. It is in our best interest, financial and otherwise, to plow sidewalks. It’s also a matter of justice. I await the city manager’s report and ensuing debate
— Maureen Wilson (She / Her) (@ward1wilson) January 29, 2019
A city council report issued in 2014 stated that a 34 dollar annual increase in tax for each homeowner would be enough to fund sidewalk snow-clearing.
Recently, Wilson requested the city council to issue a new report on the potential costs of funding snow-clearing service.
Geffros sees potential for the current discourse to open up to further discussions on other issues of accessibility and social justice.
Hamilton’s operating budget will likely be finalized around April. Until then, Geffros and other Hamilton residents will continue to speak out on the issue.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
By: Alex Bryant
Many students at McMaster University are furious over the recent changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program. Our student unions, which are some of the best tools we have to collectively resist changes like these, are also under attack.
The Ontario government will soon deem some ancillary fees “unnecessary.” Given the extreme cost of education at Ontario colleges and universities, students are likely to feel strong-armed into opting out of these fees.
While student-run groups and services funded through direct ancillary fees play an important role in students’ lives, we should expect the government to use this framework to attack student unions by making union dues optional.
Doing so poses an existential threat to the McMaster Students Union, the Graduate Students Association and, by extension, campus groups and services under their umbrella.
Legislation in Quebec and British Columbia protects some student unions from attacks of this kind, but no such legislation exists in Ontario. Students must collectively resist this attack on student unions but also recognize that defending the existence of these organizations does not require defending the actions of current or past student leaders.
This government has its sights set on student unions because our organizations have for decades played a key role in fights for change at the governmental, institutional and community level. This is not because our unions are over-run with political reactionaries, but because the work of student unions naturally cultivates political community between students of differing backgrounds.
When we join union-based clubs or benefit from related services, we also have the opportunity to critically engage with our peers over shared struggles and recognize our ability to overcome these struggles together. When we allocate union resources to student-led projects, we choose to build a community where everyone can have enough food to eat, openly love who they want to love, safely walk alone at night and relax by having a great party.
This critical recognition of our shared experience is also the basis of student unions’ advocacy for students’ diverse interests, and as central locations for organized opposition to the origins of our shared struggles — tuition fees, for example — alongside others outside of our campus community.
Unfortunately, conservative politicians tend to defend the grounds for the struggles we face by protecting the interests of those who benefit most from the status quo. Hence why conservative politicians and campus conservatives have long attacked student unions and related groups.
Long after students choose to found their unions, the processes of direct democracy of the general assemblies and referenda used to set union due rates, and members’ participation in the allocation of this funding through votes on budgets and representative bodies, reflect that student unions are fundamentally for students and our interests.
We may wish voter turnout were required to be higher, disagree with some of the campaigns and policies adopted by the organizations our union funds, or something similar. We should hold fast to these legitimate criticisms, engage with our peers about them and demand change where those leading our unions have genuinely failed us.
If our demands are ignored, we may rightfully escalate our actions until they are implemented just as we will do with the provincial government. However, criticizing the work of our unions and related organizations is importantly different from attempting to eliminate these organizations, which is what the provincial government seeks.
Hoping finally to accomplish their thinly-veiled goal of destroying student organizing, the provincial government has even abused our critical examination of our peers’ work in order to support an existential threat to our unions.
I've heard from so many students who are tired of paying excessive fees, only to see them wasted and abused.
That's why we're giving students the power to choose to pay for the campus services they actually use.https://t.co/XYC8G4jaZ0
— Doug Ford (@fordnation) January 26, 2019
We must forcefully resist this rhetoric and this attack. We must protect our student organizations as a whole by keeping in the foreground their foundational importance to our ability to organize, and by doubling-down on our commitment to support the collection of union dues.
Especially under the current government, students across Ontario must work together to become educated about the struggles facing our peers, build skills, organize, resist and stand in solidarity with others doing the same — student unions continue to be one of our best tools for doing so.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
[adrotate banner="16"]
[feather_share show="twitter, google_plus, facebook, reddit, tumblr" hide="pinterest, linkedin, mail"]
Students across the province may soon have a little more change in their pockets. On Jan. 11, a letter-writing campaign was launched by the MSU and other schools belonging to the Ontario University Student Alliance with the aim of convincing the Ontario government to fund a five-year tuition freeze.
TimeOut Tuition is the actualization of MSU President Ehima Osazuwa’s much-discussed tuition platform point, an issue whose solution students have been waiting to see come to fruition.
“Tuition and financial aid and affordability has been a priority for the MSU this year, and one of the biggest things we wanted to do was galvanize a lot of student support behind ideas like a tuition freeze for the next tuition framework,” explained Spencer Nestico-Semianiw, VP (Education).
He hopes the letter-writing campaign will help gain much of this support. The letter itself succinctly explains the main concerns OUSA-affiliated schools have with the steady increase in tuition, namely the unsustainable nature of the increase and the serious financial burden tuition and debt place on students. Nestico-Semianiw hopes that students relate to the issues identified in the letter, and welcomes any who wish to write their own personal notes.
Nestico-Semianiw’s goal is to send a package of 1,000 signed letters to Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Ministries of Training Colleges and Universities and Finance. “What we’re urging the government to do is reallocate some money that’s already in the sector, specifically the tuition and education tax credits to fund a fully-funded tuition freeze,” he said. This means that not only will tuition remain stable for the duration of the freeze, but that it will be funded by the government to ensure Ontario and Canada at large remain competitive in the academic world.
“If next year’s teams don’t make this [advocacy] as big of a priority, then it’s going to be very easy for this conversation to be lost in the next framework.”
Nestico-Semianiw was quick to admit the freeze comes at a high price. It would cost the province around $106 million. The MSU and its OUSA colleagues are asking that this be replaced with money from the $340 million the government spends on post-secondary education tax credits. He explained that the issue with these tax credits is that they are not distributed in an equitable manner. Lower income families claim around one fourth the amount that higher income families do because they pay less taxes.
Another issue with the way tax credits are distributed is that none of the money is available to students or their families upfront. “It’s something you only get back after you’ve completed a year or two years or you might not receive the benefit for half a decade,” Nestico-Semianiw said.
If the letter-writing campaign is successful, the Ontario government will freeze tuition rates for five years, following the expiration of the current framework in 2017. Without this constant hike in tuition, a first-year student in the 2017-18 school year would hypothetically save approximately a total of $750 over the course of their four-year undergraduate program during the freeze. Students in a five-year program would save closer to $1,000.
While he anticipates a successful outcome for the campaign, Nestico-Semianiw acknowledges TimeOut Tuition is only the beginning of a surge of advocacy for lower tuition in Ontario. He expressed confidence in the soon-to-be-announced MSU presidential candidates, many of whom are eager to work on this project as well. “If next year’s teams don’t make this [advocacy] as big of a priority, then it’s going to be very easy for this conversation to be lost in the next framework if students aren’t at the forefront of that,” he said.
The MSU hopes to gain support for TimeOut Tuition not just from students, but from politicians, community members and even the university. “It’s definitely student-centered and student-run, but we want to show that these are ideas [others] all get behind,” Nestico-Semianiw explained. As of Jan. 12, the campaign had received just over 400 signed letters, including one from Hamilton Ward 1 councilor Aidan Johnson.
Photo Credit: Jon White/Photo Editor
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
[adrotate banner="16"]
[feather_share show="twitter, google_plus, facebook, reddit, tumblr" hide="pinterest, linkedin, mail"]
After paying a couple grand for course enrollment per year, students have to dole out another hefty sum to purchase courseware. Many classes require textbooks, with midterm and exam questions being drawn from their pages. Reluctant to spend what is often upwards of $100 on a textbook that is likely to be only opened once or twice, students are forced to either forego the textbook marks or pay the cost and walk out of the campus store textbook in hand.
MSU President Ehima Osazuwa has been very vocal about his hope to reduce tuition, and now he turns his attention to the other major absorber of student funds: courseware.
“We tried to see if we can tackle the issue by having more courseware printed at Underground, because right now the majority of courseware is printed by the University and it is significantly more expensive than printing through Underground,” Osazuwa explained.
Printing through Underground, a full service media and design center located in the Student Center, would reduce costs per textbook by around $20 according to Osazuwa.
Ultimately, however, it is at the discretion of professors to decide to make the switch. The biggest challenge lies in incentivizing professors to print through Underground.
“We are trying to tackle the issue as a one-on-one relationship with the professors, especially those who teach big classes and have a lot of students.”
Implementing this philosophy is up to the President of VP Finance Daniel D’Angela as well as Underground employee Justin Barnes, whose goal has long been to increase courseware printing.
“Last year we ended up with $19,000 in sales from courseware, with the first semester making up only $3,000 of that portion,” said Osazuwa. He hopes that the increase will continue in the years to come.
Yet Osazuwa does not want to stop there. “The second thing was to make a Materials/Textbook Committee, because in my opinion the future of textbooks is online.”
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
