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UC Global Food Initiative

UCOP Student Leadership Summit (Fall 2024)

The UC Bonnie Reiss Climate Action Sustainable Food Fellows (formerly known as Global Food Initiative Student Fellows)

The University of California, Santa Cruz invites applications for a student fellowship opportunity offered across all UC sites. This fellowship will support the contributions of outstanding undergraduate and graduate students to work with campus faculty and staff on core objective areas of the fellowship.  Applicants must be matriculated undergraduate or graduate students at UC Santa Cruz for the entire 2024-2025 academic year. To apply, review the details below and complete the application form. The application includes identifying up to two references that the review committee may contact before finalizing the selected candidates for this year. One reference must be a UCSC faculty or staff, and the second can be an internship agency sponsor or work/professional related reference.  

 
The UC Office of the President (UCOP) will fund fellows at each of the ten campuses, five academic health centers, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) and UCOP. Each campus, LBNL, ANR and UCOP will receive $5,000 per fellow. The awards may be given to undergraduate or graduate students to support the fellowships foci outlined below. As in past years, each location will administer the program locally so students’ efforts can be aligned with local issues being addressed through campus aligned projects. Areas of Focus for this year are:
 
Bonnie Reiss Climate Action Sustainable Food Systems fellows can work on projects broadly related to this subject. This fellowship, formerly known as the Global Food Initiative fellowship, seeks to uplift campus sustainable food systems efforts. Further, Sustainable Food Systems fellows will help campuses and health systems define the actions and resources needed to procure at least 25 percent of UC’s food supplies from sustainable sources by 2025. Fellows may work on areas of high priority to those in campus and health system food service operations, such as:
    • Aligning definitions and reporting of sustainable and plant-based food procurement
    • Engaging UC community members on sustainable food priorities
    • Conducting data collection and analysis of current institutional food procurement
    • Working directly with food service procurement and operations staff to identify challenges and potential solutions related to increasing sustainable food procurement
    • Identifying the costs associated with switching to sustainable suppliers to meet the 25% goal
    • Completing or auditing the food service annual reporting for the systemwide Sustainability Annual Report
    • Developing case studies on sustainable food procurement actions taken by locations
    • Preparing grant submissions to support sustainable food priorities
FELLOWSHIP AMOUNT: $5,000
The funding will be administered as a departmental award. Applicants should be aware that receipt of a fellowship may affect financial aid packages, if relevant and you have a question about impact on financial aid, please discuss with your financial aid officer before applying.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Thursday, September 19, 2024 (by Noon PST) (APPLICATION CLOSED)

SELECTION REVIEW:
The Center for Agroecology and parnters from the campus Sustainability Office and UCSC Dining will review applications, and announce decisions on September 23, 2024. The recipients will serve during the 2024-25 academic year, and will be expected to start their project development in Fall Quarter 2024. Selected fellows will work on their project approximately 8-10  hours a week through the end of the spring quarter 2025. Specific timing will be arranged with agreement of student recipient and direct fellowship advisor. Selected fellows may also be invited to present their project at a specified statewide convening in spring 2025 (TBD).

ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP:
Background on the Bonnie Reiss Climate Action Student Fellowship formerly know as the UC Global Food Initiative Student Fellowship Program. The overarching goal of the University of California Global Food Initiative is “to harness the resources of the University of California – its research, people, expertise, and tradition of public service – to put the world on a pathway to feed itself in ways that are nutritious and sustainable.” To engage students in this effort, the UC Office of the President announced the creation of the President’s UC GFI Student Fellowship Program. As we move forward this fellowship has combined with Climate Action fellows to honor a former UC Regent and her legacy. The University of California lost one of its most passionate, caring and effective advocates with the passing of Regent Bonnie Reiss in 2018. One of Bonnie's biggest passions was working to mitigate the effects of global climate change, and so the Fellowship program was renamed in her honor. Students are known as Reiss Fellows, and their work will become part of Bonnie's long and distinguished legacy. The program provides each campus with funding in 2024-25 for up to three student awards of $5,000 each to support costs of living while at UCSC and engaged in the fellowship.  Selected Fellows will be asked to share a bio picture and brief bio that will be featured on the campus fellowship webpage alongside their final project concept submitted in Fall. 

RESPONSIBILITIES:
-Select one or more of the four UCSC Fellowship focused options (see below) and if selected finalize your project scope by the end of October 2024. 
-Participate in UC Reiss Fellowship system-wide meetings and conference calls as scheduled (this will include 1-2 in-person retreats--all travel costs covered)
- If an undergrad candidate participate in bi-weekly meetings facilitated by the student organization, Food Systems Working Group and the Center for Agroecology to stay connected to your peers
-Coordinate and advance your project objectives and products to be completed over this year.  

FELLOWSHIP PROJECT FOCI AT UCSC will include one of the following:
A) UCSC Basic Needs Sustainable and Equity Driven Food Sourcing--work with professional staff and student staff advancing healthy, sustainable, and culturally relevant food for students across basic needs food access sites. This project will explore food donations and recovery as well as new vendors and partners to advance sustainable food for all students.
 
B) UCSC Dining Sustainable and Equity Driven Food Sourcing--work with professional staff and student staff advancing healthy, sustainable, and culturally relevant food in campus dining halls and food services. This project builds on supply chain sourcing analysis and reporting from UCSC to UCOP as part of the annual campus updates on advancing sustainable practices on our campus.
 
C) UCSC Farm to Campus Project–work with professional staff and student staff in advancing sustainable food production and distribution to campus retail locations that accept EBT operated by UCSC Dining. This project will support ways to advance product pathways and agrifood literacy materials at the point of purchase/consumption to increase awareness of sustainable food efforts at UCSC.
 
QUALIFICATIONS:
-Matriculated undergraduate or graduate student at UC Santa Cruz for 2024-2025
-Outstanding oral and written communication skills.
-At least one year of experience in researching and/or organizing complex information.
-Experience with facilitation or coordination among diverse people and programs.
-At least one year of work experience and/or public service related to food, agriculture, and/or social justice
-Experience working on interdisciplinary approaches to problem-solving.


If you have any specific questions please feel free to contact Tim Galarneau at tgalarne@ucsc.edu or 831-359-8861

Meet the 2024-2025 UCSC Bonnie Reiss Climate Action Sustainable Food Fellows

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Nayeli Vargas, UCSC Basic Needs Sustainable and Equity Driven Food Sourcing Fellow 
Nayeli Vargas (she/they) is a fourth year student at UCSC double majoring in psychology and art. She is currently working as a part of the Basic Needs program and Center for Agroecology through her role at the Cowell Coffee Shop on campus, a non-transactional cafe designed to increase student’s access to nutritious, culturally relevant meals, and other basic needs resources. In this position Nayeli has been given the opportunity to learn about sustainable food systems while assisting with the food recovery process. Taking on this role as a Basic Needs Food Sourcing Fellow will allow her to pick up the project where others left off, helping create a more equitable, reliable, and nourishing food system for students now and to come.

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Samantha Rodriguez-Rosten, UCSC Dining Sustainable and Equity Driven Food Sourcing Fellow
Sam (she/her) is a second year student majoring in Environmental Science. She has a background in analyzing food sourcing and sustainable dining procurement through her work with the UCSC Real Food Challenge Team. Her passion for equitable food systems is deeply rooted in witnessing the stark differences in food accessibility between her family members from Mexico, who were farmworkers, and her relatives in Norway. This contrast fueled her commitment to advocating for fairness, sustainability, and regenerative stewardship in food systems. Sam hopes to create lasting change by promoting policies and practices that prioritize equitable access to nutritious food, while continuing to champion regenerative and sustainable solutions in the broader food system, both locally and globally.

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Juan Bermudez-Medrano, UCSC Dining Sustainable and Equity Driven Food Sourcing Fellow

Juan (he/him) is a third-year student double majoring in Agroecology and Economics, while also pursuing a minor in Sustainability. His passion for food systems is deeply rooted in his family’s history as his relatives were farmers in Mexico and others were farmworkers in the U.S. Growing up in Salinas, CA, an agricultural town, he was exposed to the industry from an early age, allowing him to gain firsthand experience. Working in the fields himself fueled his curiosity not just about farming but the broader food system and its complexities. As a fellow, Juan aims to create a more sustainable system within school and the community, with a long-term vision of scaling those improvements to the larger more widespread system.

 

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