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Priorities:Fordham University Student Priorities

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→‎Strategy 2: More Vegan/Vegetarian Options (2022 Fellows)

=<span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Strategy 2: More Vegan/Vegetarian Options (2022 Fellows)=

<big><span style="text-align: left; color: rgb(29, 28, 29); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While Fordham hosts a diverse group of students on campus, they don't adequately nourish each type of person. Many vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free students struggle to enjoy their food experience because of a lack of quality and /or a lack of choice amongst the food options that are currently offered. This issue leaves students unsatisfied and constantly worrying about their nutrition, when their focus should be on their school work and trying their hardest. To alleviate some of this stress and promote a healthy, balanced diet for all, our solution is to introduce more inclusive food options to campus. This solution will help these special diet students enjoy meals more, but it will also benefit the greater group of students to have more options for healthy eating/alternative meals. This solution is 2 -part: the one part is the creation of new menus at the existing dining establishments that will be specifically for special diets, and the second part is introducing more ~~Vegan~~vegan/vegetarian/gluten free brands and items into the POD grocery store on campus.</big>

<big><span style="text-align: left; color: rgb(29, 28, 29); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Student involvement is essential to properly carry out this idea because without the students feedback and ideas, we will have little direction on what these students truly enjoy eating. To test the waters, Eden began including students that have special diets. She conducted separate interviews with students from different grade levels who are gluten free, vegan, and vegetarian. The feedback confirmed our assumptions and fears. The students all separately mentioned that they feel like they are at a disadvantage because of their lifestyles, and that they wish they were offered the same amount of choices as someone who can eat things like bread or meat. Due to their passion in the subject, Eden and Julia will be leading communication with the Deans and the head of dining services to understand what is currently working and what indeed is not. Vanditha will be running point on the focus groups; gathering opinions and asking the needed questions to find out what kids need to have a better on campus living experience. Ojaswi would play the role a middleman on the team. She will take the feedback that Vanditha gathered, research the answers to any lingering questions, and organize the data to hand off to Julia and Eden to parlay to the Deans.</big>

<big><span style="text-align: left; color: rgb(29, 28, 29); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Animals have been used for therapeutic causes in various settings – mental health clinics, yoga centers, and even at some universities! At Fordham, however, that isn't a reality. Students complain about midterms and finals week just like they do everywhere else, but the lack of available appointments with Fordham Counseling makes coping with stress and low mental health extremely difficult. Our solution to this problem lies in the implementation of therapy dogs for mental health, particularly by partnering with local shelters and clinics and bringing the dogs over to campus during the last few weeks of the semester, which are often the most stressful times of the year.</big>

<big><span style="text-align: left; color: rgb(29, 28, 29); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Specifically, our plan is to harness the power of student input – each of us will survey Fordham's student body at different points during the training in order to gain the widest variety of answers in terms of how students feel about therapy dogs. Vanditha's survey from 8/10 /22 indicates that almost 93% of students at Fordham (out of her 1,034 followers) support therapy dogs for stress relief, with only 7% feeling indifferent and a whopping 0% that disagree. Julia and Vanditha will be responsible for contacting the Deans and setting up meetings to discuss the idea, while Eden and Ojaswi will contact other staff, namely social psychology professors on campus and possibly the counseling department. We plan to continue surveying the student body to look for changes and are thinking about setting up a stand at the Club Fair where we would set up an "opinion jar," allowing students to silently contribute their thoughts on our solution.</big>

<big><span style="text-align: left; color: rgb(29, 28, 29); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The next step is to arrange the dogs themselves, and we would work with local clinics and organizations for this. All four teammates would call and visit shelters and clinics, and we expect this process to take a while. Finally, if this idea works out and we are able to secure the dogs, we will all survey the student body and the end of the year to find out if our solution actually helped.</big>

=<span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Strategy 4: New Student Orientation: Focusing on Social Adjustment=

<big><span style="text-align: left; color: rgb(29, 28, 29); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Being a freshmen is an intimidating and uncomfortable period. From moving into dorms, leaving family, and making new friends, adjusting to college life isn't always easy for all. To tackle this specific problem, many college ~~campus'~~campuses, if not all, have new-student orientations at the beginning of the fall semester. These orientations vary between each campus, but most go over the importance of academics, time-management, and "putting yourself out there". At Fordham, new-student orientation lasts around 2-3 days, to which is not a lot of time given to freshmen to ease into the pace of college. Ideally, if new-student orientation at Fordham could be extended to 5 days, it would be very beneficial for over-whelmed freshmen and would allow them to take in what's expected at these institutions and to better assimilate into the campus community.</big>

<big><span style="text-align: left; color: rgb(29, 28, 29); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Our plan regarding new-student orientation is to reform and create an extended orientation period that alleviates new students of their concerns, fears, and uneasiness. To do this, we would think that sending out pre-orientation surveys would be beneficial to see what the concerns of each student is, these results will be shared with their respective orientation leaders which will help the OL's formulate the best interactive plan for their cohorts. Fordham does a great job at selecting upperclass student leaders to accommodate freshmen through an application and selection process for "OL's" (orientation leaders), however, some students have struggles with communicating and connecting with their orientation leaders. To accommodate both students and OL's, it should be emphasized that OL's should have a casual and easy-going attitude with the freshmen. By doing this, we are looking for less of a formal approach between OL's and students but rather a buddy system approach where students can easily talk to and rely on their OL's.</big>

Jmaling25

2022 Cohort

23

edits