Like many of you, I am sick of hearing about cage-free eggs. It’s not that I don’t think it is an important issue, but rather it is time UDS respond to student concern and switch to Certified Humane cage-free eggs.
The UDS Student Advisory Board meeting on Feb. 2 made this clear. The setup was anything but fair. UDS picked the time, made the agenda, decided who was allowed to speak, picked the person who ran the meeting, decided who qualified as members of the board ” and even forbade the use of pictures and audio/visuals. Despite all of this, UDS lost. When it was all said and done, the students on the board voted 5-2 in favor of cage-free eggs. UDS’s response? Sending this to yet another association in hopes that they vote against cage-free eggs. This has gone on long enough. As others have pointed out, students have other issues to worry about; UDS must stop stalling.
Many people are concerned with this issue. The Daily has been overwhelmed with letters to the editor about cage-free eggs, most in support of switching. At the meeting, Compassionate Action for Animals presented UDS with more than 2,000 signatures in support of cage-free eggs, more than half of which were from students in the residence halls. As reported in the Daily, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly has come out strongly in favor of cage-free eggs on campus; it is particularly interested in seeing UDS-run restaurants such as those in Coffman Union switch. Through its misinformation, UDS managed to avoid a vote in the undergraduate association that it was likely to lose. Now UDS’s own advisory board has voted in favor of switching to cage-free eggs. Yet UDS still claims students don’t support such a move. It still holds hope that it can find some association or board that will vote against cage-free eggs.
If this is how UDS responds to student concern, I say it is time to show UDS the door. Aramark’s contract is coming for renewal in less than two years, which makes this the perfect time to ask the University to switch to other providers. If you are sick of UDS ignoring your comments, preventing you from taking an apple back to your room or charging you an inordinate amount of money for what it calls food, join me in telling the University that 10 years of Aramark is enough.
Samuel Ero-Phillips is a UDS Student Advisory Board member. Please send comments to [email protected].
