Berkeley dining hall goes 'organic'

On April 3, students at UC Berkeley's Crossroads dining commons marched into history when they loaded up their plates with lettuce, tomatoes and vinaigrette dressing.

The organic salads they sat down to eat were the first ever to be prepared in a certified organic kitchen on an American college campus, according to the country's leading organic certifying organization. By spring 2007, all four of the dining halls managed by Cal Dining, one of the campus food services, will offer certified organic salad bars.

Each of the stainless steel pans cradled in ice along both arms of Crossroads' lazy-V salad bar is now laden with organic goodies: fresh spinach, carrot and cucumber slices, pasta salads, kidney and garbanzo beans, bacon bits (okay, they're actually soy), sunflower seeds, an array of salad dressings, and all the other fixings a great salad requires. Items that do not meet the organic standards — breads, soups, olives — have been banished to the end of the counter, beyond the banners heralding certification.

Shawn LaPean, director of Cal Dining, said that going organic was a challenge. "We wanted to incorporate organic products into our program because it's the right thing to do for our community, and our customers were asking for it," he said. "But the student dining committee wouldn't support an action that might increase room-and-board fees." To hold down the higher costs that many organic items command, Cal Dining negotiated with its vendors and struck a deal with a local salad dressing company owned by a UC Berkeley alumna.

For more information, see www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/04/03_organic.shtml.

— from Liese Greensfelder, UC Berkeley Media Relations

Staff, students sought for UC Web chats

Two upcoming Web chats will give UC students and staff the opportunity to provide input to the UC 2025 planning process launched by President Robert Dynes. The electronic exchanges follow similar Web chats offered to UC faculty and alumni earlier this academic year.

UC students are invited to participate on Monday, April 10, from 4 to 5 p.m.

UC staff members are invited to participate on Tuesday, April 18, from noon to 1 p.m.

Participants can join either Web chats by visiting www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc2025/webchats.html.

Each Web chat will be led by the co- chairs of the UC planning effort, Acting Provost Rory Hume and Senior Vice President for University Affairs Bruce Darling.

UCLA faculty survey sheds spiritual light

More than half of faculty members believe it is important to enhance undergraduates' self-understanding and to develop their moral character and values, but only 30 percent think colleges should concern themselves with students' spiritual development, according to the results of a national survey released last week.

"The majority of faculty seem to embrace many of the aspects of students' spiritual development as relevant to higher education," said Alexander Astin, director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, which conducted the survey. "Except when you use the term 'spiritual,' they seem to get a little more uncomfortable."

View the report at http://www.spirituality.ucla.edu/reports/spirit_professoriate.pdf.