Let Them Eat Cake! CSU-Pueblo Wins Football Championship - Boasts Students and Faculty too Poor to Buy Food

CSU-Pueblo Division II National Football Champions
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Where are our priorities? Does it strike anyone else as odd that a university which has sufficient resources to win a football national championship would also have students, staff and faculty who are too poor to buy groceries?

Like most universities, Colorado State University - Pueblo likes to brag about its proudest accomplishments. At the moment, winning the 2014 NCAA Division II Football Championship is CSU-Pueblo'sproudest accomplishment and, as one might expect, the university has posted a sequence of photos which herald the achievement on its home page. Without a doubt, winning the Division II National Football Championship was an extraordinary achievement and everyone connected with the football program, especially its high-flying student-athletes, deserves a standing ovation.

Curiously, if you pause on the CSU-Pueblohomepage long enough, in addition to the triumphant football images, you will also see a bizarrely juxtaposed image which celebrates the Pack Pantry. The Pack Pantry is an initiative launched by CSU-Pueblo students to address a growing problem at the university: food insecurity.

Ever since Shabazz Napier, who amidst the revelry of UConn's 2014 NCAA Basketball Championship, revealed that he often went to bed "starving", Americans have been more aware of food insecurity among college students. The idea that student-athletes who help their universities earn millions in revenues would go to bed hungry was so shocking that, following Napier's live TV revelation, there was a huge public outcry about food insecurity among college athletes.

No one should go hungry in the Land of Plenty--particularly student-athletes who pump millions into university coffers I congratulate the kind-hearted students, such as those who initiated the Pack Pantry, for providing emergency food relief to students, staff and faculty who are struggling to feed themselves and their families.

That said, I question the priorities and sensitivities of university administrators who openly brag about the fact that their students and employees are in need a food relief program. People who work and go to school full-time in the land of plenty should not go hungry. Do CSU-Pueblo's leaders realize that starving students and employees are not something to brag about? Even worse, it was not CSU-Pueblo's President who created the university's food relief program. It was students. Should students, whose pockets are, admittedly, not overflowing with spare cash, have to bear the burden of feeding their starving peers and teachers? I think if CSU-Pueblo can find a way to win a Division II National Football Championship, it can also find a way to end hunger among its students and employees.

Actions speak louder than words. The current plan to solve the hunger problem at CSU-Pueblo is:

1. Encourage penniless students to continue feeding hungry students, staff and faculty.

2. Reward President Lesley DiMare with year-end salary bonuses.

If you believe that CSU-Pueblo has an obligation to solve the problem of hunger among its students, staff and faculty, then I encourage you to contact the educational leaders listed in the table below, and demand that they take corrective action immediately: