The Trials and Tribulations of Lunch at the Visual Arts Building

Editor’s Note: Magazine Photographer Briana Mireles is a graphic design major who has been taking classes in the Visual Arts Building since 2021. Mireles commutes to the Visual Arts Building every day. She is scheduled to graduate in Fall 2023.

Since UTRGV was established, new opportunities for the younger generations to study and launch themselves into society arose. As much as the opportunities have been extremely generous, there is more to resolve. 

It is the classic trope of how a school funds certain programs and often neglects other departments. This is an unfortunate reality for students of the UTRGV School of Art and Design. 

Every time a student thinks about buying from the meal prep vending machine, it is empty nine out of 10 times. The one time it is stocked, the food is expired or near its expiration date.

Fine arts students are concerned and outraged that their nutrition and diet plans have to rely on the other vending machines stocked with products exceeding in added sugars and preservatives. In the long run, consuming them often will lead to health problems. 

According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the average recommended consumption in adults of added sugar is 17 teaspoons and the normal quantity of sugar in a bottle of soda equals 15 teaspoons.

Since one soda contains almost the daily recommended intake of added sugar, students, having no other option to recur to, may experience a sugar rush. To process high sugar levels, the body produces more insulin, the hormone in charge of regulating blood sugar levels.  A sugar crash produced by the exhaustion of the insulin production comes with fatigue, lack of concentration and productivity. 

The symptoms may not sound efficient in a learning environment. However, since the infrastructure of the art building was repurposed for its current use, the art students have to deal with it.

“This building previously [was a] Walmart; the structure is based on that,” said Ed Pogue, director of the UTRGV School of Art and Design. “I think the lack of natural light is [another] issue.”

Pointing and calling out the fault of the structure and framework of UTRGV in this department is not enough, as it is a nightmare to register for  graphic design courses. Since the catalog changed in 2020, graphic design students dread registration as they become filled with the anxiety of having to constantly check in with their respective advisers and professors. The classes they need to graduate may fill up and students end up on a waitlist.

“I think for students to rely on [vending machines] as their primary source of meals when they are in school is not what we should do,” Pogue said.  “We talked about it in a faculty meeting; it was suggested maybe that we see if there are some food trucks. One of the other things I think I haven’t had a chance to look into that we’ve talked about is we [could] get the vendors in the Student Union to prepare something that could be brought here … but that’s another idea we’ve talked about.” 

Students are constantly voicing their concerns and unconformity. They are growing tired of asking for better conditions in their building. Every week there is a struggle with the vending machines. 

Graphic Design senior Arianna Peña-Rocha said she has seen cases in which a student’s card is charged for others’ purchases.

“Suddenly, the mechanical part of the vending machine [makes] you manually hit the end order, or else it would keep ordering items in your card,” Peña-Rocha said. “The only other option we have is a machine that’s next to it [meal prep], which is hard to see what food is available. But if you try opening it, it will start blaring an alarm at you. And the food doesn’t have a variety; they don’t refill it often, so that one is not a good alternative.”

Several alternatives to resolve this issue temporarily were made. One of them is another meal prep vending machine; however, the current one in the building does not get restocked as often as it should. Nothing has been put in place as of yet.

As students approach the busiest stage of the semester, full of exams, projects and presentations, having a balanced diet and healthy lunches is vital. It is the fuel for the brain.

It is sufficient to say some students, faculty and staff, especially the people commuting in buses, are getting more and more preoccupied with their current situation. Most classes are not offered on the Brownsville campus; therefore, bus commuters who spend up to four hours of their day on a bus and find themselves traveling to the Edinburg campus daily,  often do not get the opportunity to pack a lunch. They are stuck between having to leave campus and risking getting late to class or taking their chances with a vending machine.

Packing lunch, as good an alternative as it is, cannot and should not be the only option for a healthy meal to the students, faculty and staff that make up the School of Art and Design.