Clarified Gladfelter Green Box Policies
Rae Milstead | February 23, 2023
Feb. 15, 2023, an email was sent to student-I and employee-I to address the new to-go box initiative, which started the spring semester of 2023.
In this email, campus dining staff stated that the green to-go boxes were for to-go meals only, returning the to-go boxes with food in it was prohibited, and students will be removed from the to-go plan if these policies are not respected.
The green to-go box initiative was started to decrease campus waste by replacing single-use to-go containers with reusable, higher-quality green to-go containers. The student-body uses these boxes on a daily basis and while it seems to have had a positive impact on decreasing waste in light of large quantities of the single-use paper-to-go boxes not being found in our waste anymore. The dining hall staff shared in an email concerns and grievances with how the student body uses this new initiative.
At Warren Wilson College (WWC), there are three dining areas on campus — Gladfelter, Cowpie Cafe and Owl’s Nest Cafe. Gladfelter is the only dining hall open all day with the hours of 7:15 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends. Cowpie is open for lunch and dinner hours Monday through Thursday, lunch hours on Friday and closed on Sunday. Owl’s Nest Cafe is open from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.
With the access to off-campus dining options being limited to financial limitations and access to transportation for the student body, WWC is confronted with the issue that some students experience food insecurity: the location of WWC places the campus in a food desert, meaning it’s an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.
The email stated: “if you are seen eating out of a Glad box in Gladfelter you may be asked to return your box and be removed from the program.”
Licensed clinical social work associate and parent Lydia Fransen, responded to the email with some reflections and concerns about the impacts these policies may have.
“The email specifically — it seemed like — they were just trying to place even more controls on food during a time when it’s already difficult enough to access the food at a time when you might want to access it,” Fransen said. “Expecting everyone to be finished eating for the day by 7 p.m. when students have such various work schedules, athletic schedules and class schedules, not to mention the fact that some people are just more of a night-owl and might not be hungry enough in time to finish eating by 7 p.m. If there is a to-go option, that could help but it obviously isn’t going to alleviate all of the problems. And now we are trying to police it even further. That did strike me as maybe a move in the wrong direction.”
Lee Nix, a WWC student and student-athlete, had similar remarks and shared their personal experience of why the to-go box protocol is beneficial for her.
“Sometimes, it’s good for me to grab food ahead of time so that when I don’t have time to go to [Gladfelter], I have food on me because eating food is very important to me as we need food to live,” Nix said.
Nix mentioned the consequence for misuse of the to-go box program.
“How [does dining services] expect students to eat if they can’t meet the short time periods that Gladfelter is open?” Nix asked. “If they can’t get there? How are you expecting them to buy their food? They’re already buying food and they’re not allowing us access to the food that we buy.”