From the Editor: KPU students deserve more food options on campus
Art by @RESLUS
Midterm season is here and students are spending a lot more time on campus studying for their exams, completing assignments, and collaborating with classmates on group projects.
This also means students might need to grab a bite to stay energized between working on assignments and attending their classes.
However, there aren’t many places on Kwantlen Polytechnic University campuses to get a meal, especially healthier options, and choices vary depending which campus you are in—this needs to change.
With Chartwells Cafeterias closed at most campuses since May, students are left with just Tim Hortons, Grassroots, or the bookstore to choose from.
While Surrey has the most food options with Tim Hortons and the Kwantlen Student Association’s Grassroots Cafe, they both close at 7:00 pm on weekdays. This can be annoying for students with night classes who might not get a chance to grab food before coming to campus.
Adding more food options on campus would not only increase variety, but build a community for students and encourage them to stay on campus.
KPU is known to be a commuter campus, which means students attend their classes and then head straight home. If there were more food options available, students would be more likely to hang out longer on campus to study and chat with classmates instead of heading somewhere else to eat or going home.
Lots of universities and colleges have multiple food options on campus like the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Langara College. Some post-secondary institutions even have student-run, sit-down restaurants such as McMaster University’s TwelvEighty Bar & Grill and Isaac’s at Brock University.
Since building a new restaurant or food establishment can be expensive, hosting weekly pop-up food events is one way to have more options on campus. Whether it be having a different food truck come to campuses each week again like in previous years or the university giving out sandwiches or hot chocolate to students, creating events to have the KPU community come together through food are vital to increase engagement on campus.
Many post-secondaries also have food chain restaurants on campus that are open late.
Having more food options like this on campus could also reduce barriers for students who live away from home and save them time on prepping meals.
With the food options that are available on KPU campuses, there are few healthy places to go to. Meal Exchange’s Campus Food Report Card reported the majority of university students feel “dissatisfied with their access to healthy and affordable food options on campus.” Most options on KPU’s campuses are fried, sweet, or vending machine foods with little opportunity to grab fruits and vegetables.
Having a variety of different places to buy a meal or a snack would help open up healthier food options for students, which is important for not just midterms and finals, but also prioritizing health in the long run.
Adding a salad or rice bowl bar to replace the Chartwells Cafeterias would be a great way to have a healthy option at KPU, and it would also be friendly to all dietary needs.
Being able to pick healthy food options is important for students as it can improve mental and physical health. It can also help students focus better in classes, cope with stress, and perform better on assignments.
In the future, I hope to see more options for KPU students as it’s important to have access to healthy food, but also increase the ways we hang out together on campus.
