April 2018

Many students, staff, and faculty members bring pre-made meals to campus that require reheating, as well as carrying refillable water bottles. Home-cooked meals and tap water can be the most affordable, healthful, and environmentally-friendly options for eating while on campus. Accessible microwaves and refill stations (fountains that dispense filtered water) can therefore increase campus food equity. While staff, faculty, and graduate students are more likely to have access to departmental or research lab microwaves, undergraduate students are more dependent on publicly-available ones, of which there are only 16 on campus. There are approximately 100 water refill stations. Microwaves and refill stations are not equally distributed across campus, and many students do not know where they are located. Additionally, wealthier schools such as the Haas School of Business have far more sophisticated refill stations than less-resourced units. Currently there are not publicly available refrigerators for student use.

Refill station data collection by Jenica Bautista, Youree Choi, Isabella Chow, Anna Perhach, Noreen Truong, and Janet Xu. Microwave station data collection by KC Chung, Margaret Shi, Hannah Tong, and Lucy Yu.

Project advisor: Kim Guess

Data visualization by Shalandy Zhang