more of its resources for the population it serves. Second Harvest is also a service learning partner for Loyola undergraduates, who have helped with everything from sorting and packing food to designing and implementing public relations campaigns. Loyola has a longer history in this area, too. The executive director of Slow Food USA, Richard McCarthy, previously worked at Loyola’s Twomey Center for Peace Through Justice. McCarthy is credited with developing the Crescent City Farmers Market, which operated out of Loyola for several years. Mintz says that McCarthy was excited about Loyola’s new food studies program when the two spoke last summer. “He talked enthusiastically about how great of a fit it would be both for the university and for the city.”
A Customizable Degree Developers of the food studies program say that there will be a broad range of career possibilities that students can pursue because the program will expose them to so many facets of the food system. “The liberal arts approach to knowledge is that you may want to know about food commerce, but you also need to know about culture and policy,” says Justin Nystrom, Ph.D., associate professor of history. “We feel that we’ll generate a much more wellrounded student.” Nystrom has been involved with developing the program almost from the beginning and is also director of the Center for the Study of New Orleans and director of the Documentary and Oral History Studio. Students will be able to major or minor in food studies. And, as Nystrom points out, Loyola’s degree program is efficient enough that students could double major in food studies and another area of study, such as marketing or environmental studies, giving students an opportunity to leave the university with a customized education tailored to what they want to do. “They can marry an interest they have in food and culture and also a desire they might have to engage in the world of business,” Nystrom says. “We can offer them an academic pathway toward their goals.”
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loyno | SUMMER 2017
THE BUSINESS OF FOOD Recent graduate Ellen Egitton’s honors thesis investigates how craft coffee shop owners use their WiFi policies to shape their customers' experience of the coffee they serve. Her interviews shed light on the social and business ambitions of high-end coffee-sellers.