Few students would want to go back to eating lunch at their elementary-school cafeterias.
But that is exactly what Jan Poppendieck does.
A professor of sociology at Hunter College, a part of the City University of New York, Poppendieck studies poverty, hunger and food assistance in the United States. She spoke in Newman Hall last night to students in a course taught by professor Mary Summers.
As a W. F. Kellogg fellow, Poppendieck has traveled the country sampling school lunches and interviewing students and food-service employees to find their opinions on the food served in cafeterias.
She said she found that the food served to school children was not only unsavory but lacking in nutritional value as well.
Poppendieck discussed problems that she said undermine the Federal School Lunch Program - which provides free lunches to underprivileged students - and shared her three-part solution for fixing it.
First, she proposed that school cafeterias regulate or abolish a la carte options that students can pay for.
"A la carte food is a big business that is undoing the intent of the national school-lunch program," she said. "A la carte stigmatizes federal lunch and effectively segregates students" who cannot afford to pay.
Second, Poppendieck said the government must stop focusing on cutting costs in order to provide students with nutritious meals.
Finally, Poppendieck said there must be an effort to remove the stigma that is attached to the school-lunch program.
"With enough involvement, you can improve school lunches," she said. "I know it can be done."
Her talk was sponsored by the Fox Leadership Program and the student-run group FarmEcology.
The 26 students in Summers' course have been working throughout the semester on projects addressing hunger issues in Philadelphia. One group of students worked with Sayre High School to bring a salad bar and fruit-slushie machine to the cafeteria to give students healthier lunch-time options.
"It was exciting having her here at Penn. Her message about encouraging students in the class to continue volunteering was hopeful," College junior Monica Burnett said.
