A subtle but very important educational opportunity is being denied to a new generation of students with the proposed demise of Holy Cow Café from the University’s EMU food court. Holy Cow is 100 percent committed to sustainable organic practices in both food and business operations. These practices are lived and breathed by the café and its staff. When young students walk by the café they are exposed to the fact that every day they make choices that matter to their environment and in turn to their future. They can choose to step into this experience or pass on by but either way, whether they realize it or not, they question and learn.
The next generation of students will pay the University an ever increasing sum of money for their formal education. An important part of this formal education is the everyday life experiences, opportunities and choices these students are exposed to in the controlled environment of the University setting.
Holy Cow is a valuable part of the University’s protective world and the students gain from their direct exposure to Holy Cow’s business practices. But future generations of students will be denied this learning opportunity by a short-sighted institutional process which allows for almost no input from the University’s population. In a world economy, sustainable organic practices dedicated to the local community are an everyday struggle to maintain and afford in a business model.
Holy Cow is the only food service choice on the entire campus with an uncompromising standard in action, dedicated to a sustainable future environment. The announced replacement for Holy Cow, a franchise of Laughing Planet Café, states that they try to be organic when it is convenient. Now the undeniable message that will be presented to the young, impressionable student body is to follow your conviction until it is no longer convenient and turn your back on the problem the instant you have to struggle and risk concessions to your bottom line. With the silencing of Holy Cow, the practical learning experience being afforded to the student body illustrating that it is possible both individually and within a functioning business to make a difference in the world’s environment as well as your local community, is being removed from their education.
Holy Cow chooses to stand up for its convictions, states them boldly for everyone to experience and asks anyone to stop and question Holy Cow’s practices and subsequently their own individual actions. It is an utter shame that the EMU’s Food Services Director John Costello has made the decision to deny Holy Cow the opportunity to prove that it is possible, but not always convenient, to offer the highest quality food in a fast paced environment and still maintain personal convictions. It is an inexcusable decision by John Costello to unilaterally choose an alternative for Holy Cow that will not engage the student body to question their actions which will have an impact on their future. Way to go John.
Kevin S. Kuney, Springfield resident