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“I was lucky to be at a college where room and board were part of the equation,” Keefe said. It didn’t matter that she attended a prestigious private university: if it hadn’t been for guaranteed dining hall meals, her food budget would’ve been stretched thin. 

In 2017, when she was a professor at Hamline University, Keefe was approached by An Garagiola, a student working in the Hamline food insecurity movement. Garagiola told Keefe that she observed students often struggling to put food on the table. She wanted Keefe’s support to analyze a campus-wide survey she and several peers had conducted to determine just how widespread the issue was at Hamline.

“It was a rogue operation,” Keefe explained of the survey. “They had nearly 400 students participate, but they didn’t know what to do with the results. They had all this data but not the skills or the know-how.”   

Keefe agreed to help the students analyze their findings.  The survey found that food insecurity was widespread on campus. Intrigued and motivated by the findings, Keefe teamed up with the student group to broaden their research, eventually expanding the survey to include students at St. Catherine and Augsburg Universities.

“We had really tremendous participation on all three campuses,” Keefe said of the survey project. The second survey had a much larger sample size of just over 1,300 students: “We had a really high response rate. Our findings were statistically significant at all three campuses.”

In 2019, Keefe, with the help of Garagiola and fellow Hamline student Emma Kiley, wrote an academic article based on results from the 2017 Hamline survey. The paper was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition. According to Keefe, “It was the first time this topic of food insecurity at private universities was ever discussed in an academic, peer-reviewed journal.” 

In 2024, the same journal published a second article by Keefe and collaborators Ambria Crusan, PhD (assistant professor of nutrition, St. Kate’s), Ankita Deka, PhD (associate professor of social work, University of St. Thomas), Leandria Albury (MPH graduate, University of Minnesota), and St. Kate’s alum Olatoun Shokunbi MHI’23. Keefe believes the publication of this most recent work helped to solidify their research — and to spread the word that food insecurity is a pervasive issue, even in places that may initially seem immune to it.  

These findings have the power to change perceptions about what it means to be food insecure. Public health student Jasmine Koch ’25, MPH’26  is an intern at the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet’s (CSJ)/St. Kate’s Food Access Hub, which organizes sustainability initiatives, community gardens, and a twice-monthly free food pantry open to members of the University community. Koch said that her studies and internship work have opened her eyes to the reality that many of her fellow students need support to keep their cupboards full. Before, she thought that students at private institutions had easy access to all the food they needed. Now she sees things differently.

“It’s a big misconception that private college students are not food insecure,” Koch said. “I’ve come to realize that is really not the case. It was important for me to see that.” 

Earlier this month, Keefe presented the research at the fall Cross-Campus Food Access Coalition (CFAC) forum on college student food insecurity, held at the CSJ Carondelet Center adjoining St. Kate’s campus. She, along with Jennifer Tacheny, director of and Food Access Hub co-founder, presented research and information on community use of food resources. “They were very interested in working with us to sustain this resource for the community,” Tacheny said of the forum’s attendees, which included representatives from Hamline University, Augsburg University, CSJs, Second Harvest Heartland, Hennepin County, Ramsey County, Foundation for Essential Needs, University of Minnesota, and Neighborhood Network for Seniors. 

Keefe said that she hopes her research, combined with community outreach like CFAC’s work, will bust myths about who attends schools like St. Kate’s, Hamline, or Augsburg. Economic need doesn’t have to limit academic performance —and the student bodies at Minnesota’s private colleges and universities are shifting to better reflect the state’s racial and economic realities. 

“I think there is a lot of stereotyping about who attends a private university and what a private university looks like,” Keefe said. “Those stereotypes really just aren’t that accurate.” 

In recent years, most private colleges and universities in Minnesota have added programs aimed at addressing food insecurity on their campuses. At St. Kate’s, for instance, the Food Access Hub began as a community garden, before expanding in response to student need to the semimonthly free market that exists today. That still isn’t enough to meet the need, Keefe said. 

Food Access Hub organizers and staff say they want to make it clear that this program is available to all members of the ��ɫӰ�� community, a service that all are welcome to access. There is no income requirement to participate. To shop at the food shelf, participants just need to present some form of St. Kate’s ID. 

“When I encourage students to use the food pantry, I say it is like the library or the gym,” Keefe said. But some reluctance still exists. “Students might say they’re uncomfortable with participating, because they don’t want to take food from someone else, which is heartbreaking.” 

Tacheny explained that the University and the CSJs prioritize student leadership and engagement in the Food Access Hub through supported internships for students like Koch and outreach to undergraduate students during The Reflective Woman (TRW) first-year courses, where student interns visit to speak about food insecurity and to encourage students to volunteer at the Hub.

“From the beginning, we worked hard to have student leaders help us with communication,” Tacheny said. “We have students speaking to students about this as a resource that is here for them. A large portion of first-year students get hands-on experience with the program and it helps destigmatize the resource.” 

Keefe said that she still encounters people at St. Kate’s and other private colleges who don’t know about programs like the Food Access Hub and are surprised to learn about student struggles with food insecurity — but, she thinks, attitudes are changing. St. Kate’s is part of an ecosystem in Minnesota working to make changes that mean students have better access to food, and she’s finding more and more inroads to do this work.

“Conversations are happening at every level, everywhere I go,” said Keefe. “I’d love more members of our communities — at St. Kate’s and other institutions — to explore and invest in expanding the Food Access Hub and programs like it to better meet student needs.”

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