In Kentucky, a Hunger Strike for Basic Support Forces a President’s Hand

More than a week ago, Beau Revlett and his partner shared a plantain, one final meal before a hunger strike to pressure President Eli Capilouto of the University of Kentucky. They were demanding that he create a basic-needs center on campus to help hungry students.

Some 300 students at Kentucky have since limited their diet in some way, but Revlett was one of about a half dozen who swore off food until the demands were met. They included creating not only the center, but also a donor-supported fund to help students find food and housing, and an employee to oversee the one-stop shop.

After going several days without food, Revlett felt lethargic and had difficulty paying attention. Even more intimate parts of his life suffered. “It’s definitely thrown a wrench into our love life,” said Revlett, a senior philosophy major whose partner was also striking. “We’re very irritable and taking it out on each other.”

The protest paid off, and the hunger strikers resumed eating on Tuesday.

With a national spotlight on low-income and vulnerable students, the protest at Kentucky is the latest sign that colleges are being forced to do more to provide for their basic living needs.

Capilouto initially questioned the veracity of a survey that found that 43 percent of respondents were food-insecure, or not sure where their next meal would come from. But on Tuesday he announced more support for students’ basic food needs.

He agreed to hire and train a full-time staff member to oversee and plan efforts to support basic needs on the campus. The university also plans to combine two student-support funds, in order to better coordinate assistance and communicate it to students. In a statement, a spokesman said the university “will be open to” physical space on the campus for these efforts, but he did not commit to creating a center.

“The challenge,” wrote Jonathan Blanton, the spokesman, “is we have lots of resources on the campus to address many needs — whether it’s mental health and wellness or food and housing security issues. We need to do a better job coordinating and communicating about all of those efforts so that they are provided to students in a seamless way.”

Centers similar to the one the Kentucky students are seeking have been established at other colleges, including at several University of California campuses and Amarillo College. Students at Sarah Lawrence College are even demanding free laundry detergent from their administration.

Sara Goldrick-Rab, a Temple University sociologist who studies socioeconomic and racial inequities, says the concept of creating a single point of contact for vulnerable students exists in K-12 education and at community colleges, but not many four-year institutions have such a center. That’s changing.

“It’s not just elevating the issue of food insecurity, it’s recognizing it,” she said. “Saying ‘I see you’ is a big deal. It’s powerful in the sense that it becomes a space where this issue is acknowledged and addressed.”

Goldrick-Rab said the number of students who reported hunger, or at risk for hunger, at Kentucky didn’t surprise her. About 36 percent is typical for similar surveys at other four-year public institutions, and state funding is less in Kentucky than in many richer states. Even if the survey wasn’t representative, Goldrick-Rab said, it indicated that a significant number of respondents were food insecure.

“What level of food insecurity does he need to see for him to act?” she asked earlier in the week, before Capilouto announced the changes. “What’s the right level?”

The university had been dealing with the needs of its students at different places on campus, such as the counseling center and the Violence Intervention and Prevention Center, said Revlett, who served on a task force to respond to vulnerable students’ needs. “It became very clear during the food-and-housing-insecurity workgroup that there was no one at the university who spent their full-time job working on food and housing.”

The conversation at Kentucky, and nationwide, about what role colleges should play in providing for their students’ basic needs is animated by anxiety over increasing college costs, Revlett said.

“Cost of living is rising quickly, and financial aid is not rising at the same rate,” he said. “College is increasingly becoming for people from the upper class. That’s unfair. College is supposed to be the great equalizer.”

Vimal Patel covers graduate education. Follow him on Twitter @vimalpatel232, or write to him at vimal.patel@chronicle.com.