Letters to the Editor | Sophomore gift aids coporations, not students

It was with disappointment that we learned that the Class of 2010’s legacy at Vassar would be installing V-Cash machines on vending machines.

The chosen class gift is an affront to the sophomore class and the College community as a whole, especially when there are many admirable initiatives and programs at Vassar that suffer from a lack of funds.

This year’s proposed gift seems trivial in contrast to sophomore class gifts from previous years; the shared bike program introduced by the Class of 2009 promoted campus sustainability, communal recreation and exercise, and the summer internship grant established by the Class of 2008 made it possible for students to take unpaid internships.

This gift also seems in many ways unconscionable: The ultimate beneficiaries of the proposed V-Cash renovations will be food manufacturing conglomerates and not the local company, Triple-J Vending, which supplies the vending machines. Why should we line their pockets at our expense, especially when they have disreputable track records when it comes to sustainability and labor rights, principles this campus holds dear?

The majority of food and drinks found in vending machines are produced by industrial food manufacturers such as Nestlé, Hershey’s, Frito-Lay, and Pepsi-Cola that depend on unsustainable practices such as the production of ingredients through industrial monoculture, intensive chemical application and genetic alteration. These ingredients are then shipped to factories where they are broken down and made into snack foods in energy intensive processes. They are then wrapped in non-recyclable, non-reusable and non-biodegradable packaging and shipped to our vending machines.

That the Committee chose to support these processes shows an unacceptable lack of environmental consciousness.

The companies that manufacture the goods found in vending machines also engage in questionable labor practices. In 2006, the Washington, D.C.-based International Labor Rights Fund sued Nestlé, Cargill and Archer-Daniels-Midland for using forced child labor on West African farms to produce the cocoa the companies import into the US. In court, Nestlé responded, “We are only buyers of a product,” distancing themselves from the unjust labor practices the company supports. The proposed sophomore class gift cultivates a similar mindset by ignoring the social and environmental consequences of promoting corporate junk food.

By adding the V-Cash option to vending machines, we are spending $6,000-plus that could be put to much better use. This move also subsidizes the profits of companies that benefit from having a presence on our campus without contributing to the local community.

Perhaps our money could be better spent contributing to worthier initiatives such as that to purchase V-Cash machines for use when tabling in the College Center, proposed by Vassar Student Association Vice President for Activities James Kelly ’09. These machines will be used to support sustainable and local consumption as opposed to the junk foods the proposed gift will support.

Supporting vending machines instead of locally available and sustainably-produced snack foods seems particularly irresponsible when students have been continually pushing for more local and healthier food options in the Retreat and the All Campus Dining Center.

We recognize that there is a need for late-night snacks but perhaps there are better ways to meet this need. Perhaps the College’s dining outlets could operate for longer hours and offer a larger variety of foods, including more grocery goods and sustainable snacks.

We encourage the Vassar community to express their concerns and expectations to the Sophomore Class Gift Committee and insist the committee takes these seriously as they reconsider the gift.

—-Tendai Musakwa ’10 (Ferry House VSA Representative), Eleanor Watts ’08 (Vassar Greens), Danielle Goldie ’08 (Vassar Greens), Eleanor Mueller ’08 (Ferry House Co-operative), Alicia Harris ’08 (Ferry House Co-operative), Gail Pruett ’08 (Ferry House Co-operative), Royce Drake ’10 (President, The Catalyst Collective, Student Activist’s Union), Ezra Roth ’10 (Hunger Action), Lucille Johnson (Professor of Anthropology, Chair of the Campus Committee on Sustainability)