UC Berry Proposal Bears Fruit with Outside Funding

After a fruitful debate during the Undergraduate Council’s Sunday meeting over the funding of Tuesday’s “Berry Brain Break,” a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health has agreed to have his department sponsor the event.

The Berry Brain Break on Tuesday drew large crowds during this week’s Freshman Health Project. The funding for this event was the subject of a large debate at the Undergraduate Council’s Sunday meeting. By Jason K. Thong

Following a contentious vote by the UC to spend $850 on berries as part of this week’s Freshman Health Project, School of Public Health nutrition professor Eric B. Rimm voiced his support for having berries at the brain break, and offered to have his department cover the costs of the berries.

Rimm, who has been a blueberry researcher for about 15 years, said he wanted to sponsor the event because he felt that “students were being cheated out of berries.”

He said part of the motivation for funding the berries was that he worried undergraduates were not eating healthy foods.

“I am concerned about freshmen when they come in, because not all of them have had healthy food as part of their childhood learning,” Rimm said. “I think Harvard Dining can help them by giving them options that are healthier and also taste good.”

Department of Nutrition Chair Walter C. Willett wrote in an email that he supported the Freshman Class Committee's efforts “for putting healthy eating on the table.”

“Too often this would be pizza,” Willett added.

The Freshman Class Committee, which had originally allocated close to 10 percent of its annual budget on the berries, expressed gratitude for the offer.

“It’s an incredibly generous offer that they’ve extended,” Freshman Class Committee Treasurer Scott Xiao ’19 said. “It goes... with our motivation for Freshman Health Project: to promote issues related to student health.”

Several of the UC’s freshman representatives, who are organizing this week’s Freshman Health Project, said they pushed for bringing berries to brain break in response to demand seen in a survey of the freshman class.

“Bananas aren’t enough,” Freshman Class Committee Secretary Leah D. Stewart ’19 wrote in an email to freshmen publicizing the event. “We heard you, we fought for you, you will be getting your berries.”

Xiao said the committee would consider providing berries for students again at brain break, but that funding berries could prove to be a financial difficulty. According to Harvard University Dining Services Spokesperson Crista Martin, berries tend to be too expensive to be feasible daily options.

“Berries are incredibly expensive, and rarely in season locally when Harvard students are on campus,” Martin wrote in an email.

“As a daily item, they are too expensive for the quality we’d be able to get,” Martin added.

Xiao said that despite controversy over the initial vote, many students had expressed enthusiasm and support for the UC’s decision to bring berries to brain break.

In the past, representatives have said they want to pursue smaller initiatives like study breaks in addition to their broader goals.

“Life at Harvard is pretty good as it is,” Elm Yard Representative Evan M. Bonsall ’19 said in an interview last month. “But there are still some low hanging fruit where we could make some really simple changes to make life a lot better.”