Sometimes, Natalie Sharp slept when she got home to avoid the hunger pangs from missing dinner.

Other times, the University of Colorado graduate student ate from CU’s emergency food boxes and frequented campus events with free food to avoid going hungry. She joined mailing lists to keep an eye out for departmental events that might end with leftovers.

Now in her third year of graduate school, Sharp has secured a position with better pay, but she estimates that in her first two years of graduate school she skipped meals at least twice a week, an estimate she describes as conservative.

“You can’t learn,” she said. “You can’t think. It messes with your mood.”

CU students are going hungry, but nobody is sure how many. CU officials do not yet have an estimate, and local service providers see and serve CU students but do not track their numbers. They are in agreement, though: Food insecurity affects CU students, as it does college students around the country. The USDA defines food insecurity as “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.”

A national survey, the results of which were released in an April report by the Wisconsin Hope Lab, had 43,000 respondents from 66 participating universities and colleges. Among university student respondents, 36 percent reported being food insecure in the 30 days preceding the survey, as did 42 percent of community college student respondents.

Based on a 2013 survey, Colorado State University found about 10 percent of its students experience food insecurity.

Although CU does not have an estimate of how many students are facing food insecurity on campus, last year, 9,888 undergraduate and graduate students received need-based aid, including Pell Grants; institutional need-based aid; and certain grants, loans and work study positions.

Institutions must take action, experts said, because ensuring food security for all students is a matter of health equity and can reduce barriers for students in higher education.

“There is the moral obligation of: It’s the right thing to do,” said Eddy Conroy, a senior practitioner of research at the Hope Center, the Hope Lab’s successor at Temple University. “Universities and institutions have some level of duty of care to their students, and if they have students who don’t have safe places to sleep or, especially, who don’t have sufficient food to eat every day, then I think that there is a moral obligation there for institutions to act.

“I think that there is also a self-interested reason for institutions to act. I don’t personally think this should be their primary motivation, but one of the things that we keep saying is that if you have students who are hungry and can’t study at night because they don’t have somewhere that’s safe to sleep, those students are not going to do well, and they’re not going to graduate.”

Current resources at CU

Last month, the Colorado Independent selected 10 campuses around the state. Of those, CU Boulder was one of two that did not have a brick-and-mortar food pantry for students.

In 2017, the campus instituted emergency food boxes, which provide two to three days’ worth of nonperishable food. Community Food Share prepares the boxes, which are then distributed through campus offices, including the Volunteer Resource Center, Counseling and Psychiatric Services, and the Center for Inclusion and Social Change.

A committee composed of campus and community members has been meeting once a semester since early 2017 to address the idea of a food pantry and other long-term options. Since April 2017, the campus has distributed 64 boxes, as well as provided 1,028 pounds of food through mobile pop-up pantries — efforts CU officials describe as a sort of stop gap measure until they implement broader assistance programs.

“This community has a lot of resources, which is why we didn’t immediately jump to creating a food pantry on the CU Boulder campus,” said Hannah Wilks, director of the Volunteer Resource Center. “We really want to understand what students need.”

Representatives of Community Food Share and Harvest of Hope said both organizations have been involved in the committee’s work, and they plan to continue and expand upon that work.

Wilks said there is no hard and fast timeline yet for the committee to assess the need at CU and determine resources, but CU will provide emergency food boxes and connect students with community resources in the meantime.

Students like Sharp, who is due to graduate in May, will likely have already come and gone from the university.

“The committee is focused on piloting programs to meet needs and increasing communication to ensure that students know about available resources,” university spokeswoman Candace Smith said in a written statement. “… It is important that CU Boulder work with community resources to provide support to students, as well as evaluate campus programs. We are evaluating surveys and assessments to give us an accurate understanding of campus need. We will then determine what are other potential avenues of support for our students.”

Emilie Adamovic, who graduated last May, completed an undergraduate honors thesis on food insecurity on campus. In a survey she conducted using the same questions that the USDA uses, she found that more than half of the 339 respondents to her survey faced some level of food insecurity.

Her results might not be representative of the campus because it is possible that students who had experienced food insecurity were more inclined to take the survey, she said, but, regardless, her survey identified more than 180 students who had experienced food insecurity while attending CU. Ninety-five respondents indicated very low food security.

She also asked respondents to identify what resources would best serve them, and the most common response was free or discounted food options, such as meal plans at the on-campus dining halls — something CU does not currently offer.

“It just seems like a pretty simple solution that I’m really surprised CU hasn’t looked into more,” she said.

She said that the people working on building resources at CU are doing what they can in addition to their regular full-time jobs, and they are working against certain cultures at the university.

“Culturally, even just from telling other professors and peers about my thesis, a lot of the response I got was, ‘Oh, is that really necessary? This is CU, where everyone is rich.'” Adamovic said.

“I think it’s more because of the attitude and the culture around CU Boulder, even though it was proven not to be true because there are plenty of food insecure students on campus.”

“This really is a problem”

Some students didn’t want to share their stories publicly with the Daily Camera because of the stigma associated with food insecurity — a pervasive stigma that CU officials and service providers said complicates efforts to address it

Cherie Braden, a doctoral student in the philosophy department and teaching assistant, said that she can afford deliveries of Amazon Fresh to her apartment, but other students struggle with limited transportation to and from grocery stores, as well as tight finances to be able to afford proper nutrients. She knows graduate students who aren’t getting enough fresh food and vegetables, as well as graduate students who rely on snacks from campus events for their meals.

“This really is a problem for CU students,” she said in an email.

Corie Brown, a doctoral student in choral conducting, said that she’s been approached privately by about a half dozen students during her three years of teaching and leading choirs on campus. They mentioned facing financial difficulties, including food insecurity. She connected them with campus offices, but she wasn’t aware that emergency food boxes were available on campus.

She’d been more aware of mental health resources, she said.

During her first two years, Sharp taught multiple undergraduate classes, and she struggled to balance her own studies and her teaching duties while hungry.

“It’s definitely difficult,” she said. “Teaching involves a lot of emotional vulnerability as well, at least I feel that way, and being able to show up. If I can’t complete sentences because my blood sugar is low, it’s going to make it pretty difficult to lecture a class effectively. That’s really frustrating.”

Even now, with a comparatively higher paying university job, she tries to go home after class to avoid the temptation of going out to eat or spending more money, and she often saves half of her dinner for lunch the next day.

She pushes back against the stereotype some have of Boulder and its students: that they’re universally wealthy.

“In my teaching experience, that was one of the first things they drilled down: Don’t make assumptions about your students,” she said. “It may be true that a lot of students are monied, but it’s equally true that a lot of students aren’t.”

“We can’t just food pantry our way out of this”

Conroy, the senior practitioner of research at the Hope Center, said that though the nationwide survey data released in April did not encompass CU, the university is likely to be affected, too.

“I would be shocked if CU Boulder did not have a substantial percentage of students who face these same issues,” he said. “We’re seeing this from institutions all across the country.”

He said institutions should be measuring the needs among their students — the Hope Center provides a guide for institutions to assess needs — and they should also be creating linked services across campus, including food pantries, social service advising, housing support and emergency aid funds, as well as working closely with financial aid offices.

“We can’t just food pantry our way out of this,” he said. “It needs to be more than that.”

Smith, the university spokeswoman, said students can work with Student Support and Case Management, which provides cross-campus and community support for students experiencing difficulties. Case managers take a holistic approach to help students create plans, access services and resources and find support, she said.

Conroy said he applauded campuses that are already doing something, but said he would like to see them expand campuswide efforts.

“Today’s college students are not like college students were,” he said. “That is where we need to address change. These students are very different, and they require different levels of support. At the same time, higher education support is being cut from public funding, and that’s why we’re seeing so many of these issues.”

“I refuse to be ashamed”

Sharp said she, too, would like to see more campus resources for students facing food insecurity.

She envisions a compilation of resources, crowd-sourced among undergraduate and graduate students, to highlight events on campus where free food is available and to provide other tips and advice.

She’d also like to see a fuller food assistance program, including more education to help students navigate eligibility for state benefits.

Sharp used to feel ashamed or guilty, but she said she’s mostly overcome that now.

“Do you care if I curse? I just don’t really give a (expletive) anymore. I’m not as invested in people’s opinions. I feel like I’ve sort of found my footing as a graduate student.

“I refuse to be ashamed of having needs anymore.”

Cassa Niedringhaus: 303-473-1106, cniedringhaus@dailycamera.com