Skidmore College - Scope Magazine Spring 2019

20 SCOPE SPRING 2019 sanctioned competition against 10 other colleges and universities. Increasingly, the dining hall finds itself part of Skidmore’s educational mission. Growing interest in the study of food means that its test kitchen regularly hosts courses. In the spring semester, Shirley Smith’s Green Italy course prepared polenta and bruschetta, while Mao Chen and Cathy Silber made dumplings and a spicy-tofu dish with their Chinese-language students — just two of many similar events. “Academics, sustainability, student life and dining are all sort of melded together. Food and the dining hall become an integral component of academic life. It all becomes one and the same experience,” noted Mark Miller, director of Dining Services. Highlighting the overlap between dining and academics, Skidmore has hosted chefs-in-residence for the past two years. Culinary historian and author of “The Cooking Gene” Michael Twitty showed Dining Services staff a collard greens recipe and also explored questions of race, culture, food, faith and history in several campus talks, including a lunch at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery. The Tang also hosted a faculty-led exhibition on sugar, a foodstuff with a complex legacy for human history and health. (See “Sugar-coated” for more.) The Tang also hosted a lively panel with an artist, a sociologist and a farmer that ranged from discussions of race and agricultural subsidies to sustainability and well-being. “Food has wound its way through empires and cultures. Food is also a way to teach about our history,” Twitty said. “Food isn’t the end of the story; it’s what the food tells us about us.” Twitty’s visit was also part of a flurry of activities on campus in the spring semester related to food. “The Food Project” was the theme of Skidmore’s Science Literacy Program this semester. The program, established by histori- an Erica Bastress-Dukehart andmathematicianMarkHofmann, aims to boost understanding of and appreciation for the importance of science through team-taught courses on themes ranging from the apocalypse tomonsters. “I learn so much from the students and my colleagues. It gives us all opportunities to find intersections and connections among a variety of disciplines and experiences that is like no other,” Jennifer Cholnoky of Skidmore’s GIS Center said of the section she co-taught, called Mapping Food. “We’ve crossed oceans, plotted positions, tracked the movement of food and people and explored questions inspired by history, math, mapping and art exhibition. It’s a luxury and pleasure to learn with and from colleagues and students from across the disciplines,” added collaborator Jordana Dym, a historian. That cross-disciplinary spirit is also at the heart of Skidmore’s Center for Integrated Sciences, the largest academic project in Skidmore’s his- tory. The project will put 10 Skidmore science departments and programs under a single roof to foster dialogue between and among scientific disci- plines, the humanities, arts and social sciences. With four courses co-taught by 17 faculty members from disciplines ranging from English to theoretical physics, The Food Project exemplifies that creative spirit. The What’s for Dinner section — with professors Viviana Rangil, Anne Ernst, Joan Swanson, Caitlin Jorgensen and Ryan Overbey — considered the nutritional needs of developing children, environmental consequences of food production, the influence of religions like Buddhism on food choices, questions of cultural appreciation versus appropriation in our food choices, and lessons from indigenous women of the Americas. Studying food “has driven me to think critically about an aspect of my life that is so habituated that it has been invisible for a long time,” said Harry Mooney ’21. “I owe this class (Mapping Food) my thanks, for it has opened my eyes to all of the invisible hands that ladle the soup into my bowl.” — James Helicke F O O D F O R C R E A T I V E T H O U G H T Previous page: Cathy Silber makes dumplings with Chinese-language students. Clockwise from top left: Jennifer Cholnoky teaches Mapping Food in Skidmore’s Geographic Information System (GIS) Center; students prepare food in the test kitchen the Murray-Aikins Dining Hall as part of Shirley Smith’s Green Italy course; Kibibi Kwakye Davis ’22 tastes a cricket (shown in final image) as part of the course From Plot to Plate. “Academics, sustainability, student life and dining are all sort of melded together.” — MARK MILLER, DIRECTOR OF DINING SERVICES Christopher Massa