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Oct 31, 2024
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Course Catalog 2024-2025
Food Studies Integrative Concentration
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The integrative concentration consists of a minimum of 5 courses (or the equivalent), 1 experiential component, and 1 learning portfolio.
Note: Students must earn minimum grades of C- or P for all courses that apply toward the integrative concentration.
The food studies integrative concentration invites students to critically examine food and agriculture from a range of perspectives: as embedded within social and cultural practices; as shaped by histories, politics, and economic policies; and as a determining factor for human and environmental health. This growing field examines issues that cross disciplinary boundaries and connect the local and the global. The food studies curriculum highlights the importance of interdisciplinary inquiry and, through community engaged internships and courses, trains students in ethical, respectful, and reciprocal collaboration.
The course work and experiential learning demonstrates the value of a curriculum grounded in our location and its history. Our academic courses and experiential learning build on Oberlin’s relationships with local organizations, integrating applied research opportunities through campus growing operations and partnership with Oberlin Community Services (OCS), Lorain County Community College (LCCC), the City of Elyria, Grafton Correctional Facility, and urban farms in Lorain County and Cleveland. Through commitments to understanding and supporting Black agrarianism, Indigenous food sovereignty, immigrant workers, incarcerated citizens, and environmental and food justice, our food studies curriculum centers analysis of ethics, justice, reparations, decolonization, and sustainability, and practices of growing, cooking, farming, storytelling, community organizing, hospitality, and social care.
 Visit the concentration’s web page for more information.
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Note(s) on Requirements
- 16 of the 20 required credits may not be applied to another major, minor, or integrative concentration.
- If a student wishes to count a course that is not listed below toward the concentration, they can petition the concentration chair(s) for approval to apply the completed or in-progress course toward their concentration.
- In planning their schedules, students should be aware that some of the courses listed below have prerequisites.
Learning Goals
Students who successfully complete an integrative concentration in food studies will:
- Demonstrate an understanding of food studies concepts that are essential in understanding a field that is fundamentally interdisciplinary and crosses arts and architecture, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and policy and economics;
- Understand how food and agriculture impact human health and environmental systems, and how food and agriculture can contribute to health disparities and food apartheid as well as how this field can contribute to more just, sustainable, and vibrant urban and rural communities;
- Recognize and value the knowledge of Indigenous, enslaved, Black, urban, rural, and immigrant communities, including the expertise held by farmers, farmworkers, cooks, and food justice activists;
- Communicate the ethical, political, and scientific bases for food democracy and sustainable agriculture to a range of audiences;
- Learn to engage in respectful, reciprocal, and ethical relationships with communities, such as urban farmers, immigrant farmworkers, rural landowners, and participants in nonprofit food programs;
- Place the industrial U.S. food system–its organizational structure, policies, and objectives–in comparison to food and agricultural systems throughout history and in other countries, as well as with local and organic systems;
- Understand the complex interrelationships between the local and the global for food systems and food justice; and
- Gain practical experience through an internship and community based learning courses.
Detailed Integrative Concentration Requirements
Food Studies Integrative Concentration Course Lists
Experiential Component
All students are required to pursue some form of food-related community engagement. This can be through a course with the CBL (community-based learning) attribute or a community-engaged internship or research project. Oberlin’s existing community partners offer a wide range of possibilities for students to meet this requirement, including: Oberlin Community Services (OCS), Grafton Correctional Institution and Reintegration Center, the Food Shed, Cleveland Roots, Stone Soup CLE, and the Immigrant Worker Project.
The concentration is designed to afford maximal accessibility for students, including BIPOC, lower income, first generation, and undocumented students. All students, regardless of documentation, are eligible for assistantships and internships. We recognize that programs like Willing Workers on Organic Farms are not affordable for all students, especially those who need to earn money for college during breaks. Students will be able to fulfill the experiential requirement during the academic year through volunteer service with partners or through community-based work study at a relevant site. A winter term or summer internship/research project is also an option for students. The Mellon grant will also provide funding for paid internships for students.
Learning Portfolio
Students are required to maintain a learning portfolio that will include signature course work and documentation of experiential learning. The portfolio is a means for students to draw together the theory from the curricular component with the practice from the experiential component. Students should begin the learning portfolio upon declaration of the food studies integrative concentration and use it as a means to reflect on and chronicle their evolving understanding of and interests in the field. Ultimately, the learning portfolio will serve as a curated sample of work for graduate school or prospective employers.
Food Studies Integrative Concentration Advisory Group
Jay Fiskio, Professor of Environmental Studies; co-chair
Danielle C. Skeehan, Associate Professor of English; co-chair
Grace An, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media and French
Ruby Beil, Sustainable Agriculture Program Coordinator at Lorain County Community College
Thomas Dawkins, Director of the Bonner Center
Carmen Merport Quiñones, Assistant Professor of Comparative American Studies
Angela J. Roles, Associate Professor of Biology
Ellen B. Wurtzel, Associate Professor of History
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