Fair Trade from the Ground Up: New Markets for Social Justice

6. A Fair Trade University

120 I n spring 2010, my workplace, the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), became the second Fair Trade University in the United States.1 All coffee and tea, most sugar, and some of the rice and quinoa served in our university-managed facilities is Fair Trade Certified . Venues that sell chocolate (including beverages and ice cream) offer at least one Fair Trade option. The Fair Trade label is prominently displayed wherever these products are served or sold. Student activists provide training to the employees of on-campus vendors about the benefits of Fair Trade. Perhaps most importantly, the agreement between the students and the university employees responsible for purchasing, housing and dining operations, and lease negotiations with privately owned food vendors stipulates a continued collaborative effort to increase the availability of Fair Trade Certified products on the campus and to promote social and environmental sustainability in other ways, such as sourcing from local organic farmers and reducing waste. When I arrived on campus in 2004, recyclable plastic water bottles bobbed in the trash cans. It was nearly impossible to find Fair Trade coffee (let alone other products), and challenging enough to buy a meal served on a nondisposable plate. Today UCSD is committed to environmental sustainability and ethical trade. This chapter is a case study of a successChapter 6 A FairTrade University A Fair Trade University 121 ful, student-initiated campaign that has made a big difference, and of how UCSD students and administrators have made promoting “a better quality of life for people they probably will never meet”2 part of their core mission. I first provide a bit of background on university-based Fair Trade campaigns and then chronicle the UCSD effort in some detail. The reflections and comments constitute a story of innovation, persistence, connection, and vision. Indeed, this chapter can be read as a blueprint as well as a story.3 Fair Trade Goes to School UCSD is certainly not the first school where students have asked for, and gotten, Fair Trade products in campus food-service establishments. United Students for Fair Trade (USFT) has been helping UK and US students to do this since 1995. In the beginning, students’ efforts to promote Fair Trade were piecemeal, and in the United States they remained so until quite recently. Sometimes organizers sought only to raise awareness, for example, by sponsoring a Fair Trade farmer to speak at their school or by throwing a “Fair Trade fest.” But others have effected changes in university-managed food service operations. For example, In a tremendous victory for campus activists, Brandeis University became the latest in a growing number of colleges and universities to switch some of its food establishments to solely Fair Trade Certified coffee. Two dining halls and a campus convenience store now exclusively offer Fair Trade Certified coffee. This change comes on the heels of the overwhelming passage of an undergraduate student body referendum on switching to solely Fair Trade coffee.4 Other student campaigns have persuaded privately operated vendors to offer Fair Trade products (usually coffee). For instance, at the University of Florida at Gainesville, “Students making trade fair held a Fair Trade fair featuring a giant coffee mug, Fair Trade Certified food and information, magic shows and entertainment.”5 The organization gathered at least 200 signatures on a petition to encourage an on-campus café to offer Fair Trade espresso. The concept of an integrated “Fairtrade School” emerged in the United Kingdom, where the Fairtrade Foundation now maintains a registry of schools, colleges, and universities that: Chapter 6 122 1 Have set up a Fairtrade School Steering Group. 2 Have written and adopted a whole-school Fairtrade Policy. 3 Are committed to selling, promoting and using Fairtrade products. 4 Learn about Fairtrade issues. 5 Promote and take action for Fairtrade both in school and the wider community (Fairtrade Foundation 2009c). In 2008 students and administrators at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh followed this blueprint and declared themselves a Fair Trade University , although as a US school they could not be listed in the Fairtrade Foundation’s registry. Student activists at UCSD saw the Fairtrade Foundation goals as good guidelines, but as their efforts matured, they realized that they wanted to (1) be more specific about the scope of their resolution so that it would in fact change the way the university and companies with oncampus franchises do business, and (2) mandate continual...