<p>Apologies if it you have no desire to lead a team, N… 
I’m not joking about making sure that perception just as is important as what you say. If you say A and your team understands B, then you need to clarify what you said, or the results will be disastrous. So instead of simply stating “That is not what I said”, you should have explained your position. It is not fabrication. :)</p>
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<p>A residential college that accommodates a student with food allergies by allowing the student to live off campus is not “integrating” the student into normal campus life. The college is excluding the student from normal campus life, which often revolves around the dorms and dining halls.</p>
<p>They could live on-campus, Marian.</p>
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<p>Only if the campus has apartment-style housing with kitchens. Some don’t have this type of housing available. And even if apartment-style housing is available, if the apartments are shared by several students, there could be problems.</p>
<p>Then they should look at a campus that better suits their needs. If they are out in an on-campus apartment, they can speak to their roommates and have them all sign a roommate agreement form or find a one bedroom apartment.</p>
<p>Marian, perhaps we are picturing different colleges. I have two examples in mind–both of which would work for the PA sufferer. One would be my son’s small LAC. There are student apartments LITERALLY across the street from the campus. They are no farther from the academic buildings than the dorms are. A student could spend all day and evening on campus except to return home occasionally to eat and sleep. There are numerous places to socialize besides the dining hall, and because the college is in the south, many of them are outside (which might be a positive thing for PA sufferers who are more at risk in confined spaces). There would be no reason a freshman could not assimilate well just because he or she had to sleep at night in housing with students who are one or two years older.</p>
<p>Another example would be our huge state flagship. There are so many different types of students that there is no single freshman experience, and there is a ton of off-campus housing that is actually closer to the center of campus than some of the dorms. Obviously kids make friends in class and through clubs and other activities. Having to live in a place other than a freshman dorm and not get to eat in the dining hall is not a death sentence. It is an accommodation a student who needs it can take to protect his or her well-being.</p>
<p>Anyway, I still don’t understand why this is an issue. If a college doesn’t have apartment-style housing that would work for this type of student, don’t pick that school! Problem solved. No one is making anyone apply to a college that is unsuitable for them. And there are thousands of colleges to choose from.</p>
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<p>There you go again - assuming that whatever your college set-up is, is like everybody’s. “On campus apartment”? No such animal on either of my kids’ campuses.</p>
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<p>See my post (#100). My daughter did not die, or come close to death, but she did wind up in the emergency room due to cross-contamination at an on-campus venue.</p>
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<p>Call the whaaaambulance…</p>
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<p>Indeed. </p>
<p>Although I am a great lover of peanuts and peanut butter, I won’t suffer medically or die from being deprived of those food items. In the greater scheme of things in weighing moral/ethical issues IMO, if its between deprived of a beloved food item or risking inflicting allergic reactions leading to possible hospitalization or even death…it should be clear which should be given greater weight. </p>
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<p>IMO, that standard of “normality” is that of someone who is exceedingly ignorant or morally and ethically dubious/bankrupt.</p>
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Oh, Pizzagirl. It’s about damn time that you harped on one of my posts. I was beginning to think you were ignoring me. :)</p>
<p>As usual, what you think I believe is incorrect. I do not assume everyone’s college set up is like mine.</p>
<p>@cobrat That statement is in the context of a stranger not aware of her daughter’s peanut allergy. Every time I have a peanut in public I’m not thinking about whether the girl who’s three persons down has a peanut allergy. I’m thinking about eating a peanut.</p>
<p>There are very few things that can cause such a severe allergic reaction so quickly as a peanut allergy. So if someone could die in minutes upon coming in contact with that allergan, I don’t see any problem in making the effort to reduce that chance. I am a bit skeptical about a cafeteria’s ability to become peanut free as so many things have ingredients made with the allergans. We had a boy in a cub scout group who had this allergy, and he had a reaction eating some cookies that did not have peanuts or any nuts in them, but some incredients had been in contact with something that caused the reaction. I would refuse to make any guarantee that any such environment could be set up in a university setting, as anyone can walk in with peanut butter breath or having eaten a bar with peanuts in it and set off a reaction even in a peanut free zone. Anyone with this allergy has to be ever so vigilant because the fact of the matter is that one can’t count on any guarantees about a environment being free of peanuts. It doesn’t take much. </p>
<p>But if a college wants to make this effort, then fine with me. Those vegans who get their proteins from nut products can eat them off campus. It’s not like they are difficult to store. </p>
<p>I avoid peanuts as a rule now because of the time i spent keeping an environment as peanut free as possible and as others have said, it’s just a small gesture in support of those who have lethal reactions to something. It may reach a point if too many things make the list that I would reconsider, but I don’t have any problem with doing this.</p>
<p>Whoa! One day out in the fresh air and I return to read about (among other interesting posts) peanut shaming, Kit-Kat shaming, PBJ bar shaming, living off campus shaming, and complaints about accessable bathroom stalls!</p>
<p>The post about accessible bathroom stalls being an inconvenience for others is the first time I have ever heard a negative opinion about accessibility in public bathrooms. In real life, those large stalls are a godsend to many non-disabled people who need a little extra room (parents with babies in strollers, parents who need to go in the stall with a young child). If you are bothered by the height of the toilet in those stalls, here’s a simple solution: wait for a regular stall!</p>
<p>The thing about accommodations for disabilities, is that they often make life a little easier for all of us. Ramps, curb cutouts at pedestrian crossings, handrails, accessable entrances to public buildings spring to mind. Every person who has taken a baby, toddler, or elderly parent out in public has benefited from the those accomodations. And other accomodations that we personally don’t use, (braille on ATM’s and elevators, beeps added to crossing signals) <em>don’t take anything away from anyone</em>.</p>
<p>Which I think is the issue people have with removing an entire (healthy) food from campus to accommodate one or two persons with food allergies. There would be better ways for the college to approach the issue that both accommodate the people with allergies and don’t negatively impact every nonallergic person. </p>
<p>As an aside, I can not for the life of me imagine why a person with very specific food requirements would choose to attend a college that isn’t already set up to accomodate those needs. Literally thousands of posts on CC discuss the fact that there are many, many colleges in the country that would be a great match for any one student. Why would a person with an extreme nut allergy choose to attend a college that only has one dining facility, and doesn’t offer accomodations for a nut allergy?</p>
<p>eastcoascrazy. That post was beautiful.</p>
<p>Yes, it was. </p>
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<p>This is what I have been trying to say all along.</p>
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<p>There seems to be an assumption that the other students are negatively impacted if the dining hall doesn’t serve peanut products.</p>
<p>But would the other students care? Or even notice?</p>
<p>While reading through this thread, it suddenly occurred to me that I have never seen any food that contains peanuts in my company’s cafeteria, where I have eaten lunch five days a week for the last three years.</p>
<p>The cafeteria, which is run by a large catering company, has a web site where you can look up nutrition information for all the menu items. For example, you can search for “beef” and get nutrition information for every menu item they serve that contains beef. There are dozens of listings.</p>
<p>I looked up “peanut.” Nothing came up. The cafeteria is peanut-free, and I never noticed, until right now. </p>
<p>Would students notice the absence of peanuts? Or would they simply notice whether the dining hall serves a variety of appetizing food?</p>
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<p>Not always. For instance, some former employers’ offices I worked in had a ban on the wearing of perfumes/colognes because some people are allergic*. </p>
<p>Especially considering the fumes tend to accumulate in confined spaces like office settings considering people work 8+ hours in such places. Wear it once and one is sent home for the day with a warning. Wear it again and it’s grounds for termination under those employers’ policies. </p>
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<li>Not as lethal as a peanut allergy but can still be debilitating enough for those with allergies.<br></li>
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<p>I believe the difference here is:</p>
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<li><p>The risk of severe life threatening allergic reactions or even lethality for those with the peanut allergy, however tiny their numbers, is serious enough that a ban may be necessary if a college billing itself as trying to foster a close-knit residential community as many colleges is serious about doing that. </p></li>
<li><p>If a peanut allergy is considered an ADA* covered disability, then colleges/educational institutions and workplaces may increasingly move to that trend to avoid liability under that act. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t been done already considering I’ve worked in places which ban substances with less potential serious allergic reactions for its sufferers than peanuts. </p></li>
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<p>*IMO, it should be considering factors spelled out in #1</p>
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<p>Yes. Many would. As I said near the beginning of this thread, I lived on peanut butter in college because the dorm food was so nasty. It was the one thing I could count on to get enough protein/fat/calories. My kids are both athletes with fast metabolisms. My college-age son has a very hard time packing enough nutrition into his day, especially during periods when the dining hall is closed. Peanut butter, along with other peanut-containing products like trail mix and granola bars, is a staple for both of my kids. It’s portable, doesn’t need refrigeration, and most of all it’s cheap.</p>
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<p>My daughter’s list of academic and geographic requirements narrowed her list to five schools as it was. I actually wasn’t aware of any school, no matter the number of dining venues, that specifically accommodated peanut-allergic students, so I don’t think she saw it as an option to make that a focus of her search.</p>
<p>It seems as if the compromise position, in which the dining service prepares food that does not contain peanuts and places peanut-items in a separate area from the main salad bar, ice cream sundae bar, toast-your-own-toast station, etc, is not being considered as an option in this discussion, although from my reading of the original article about Swarthmore, it sounds like what they are actually doing.</p>
<p>Of note, I just saw an article on gourmet things you can do with the food provided in the dining hall to spruce it up. One suggestion was to mix all kinds of whatever into the waffle batter before making your waffle on the common waffle maker. Including peanut butter. That’s exactly the kind of thing that I would love to see not happen. Does someone need to mix the peanut butter into the waffle batter and contaminate the waffle maker so that a kid who would never dream that someone would do that winds up in the ER? Couldn’t you just put the peanut butter on your waffle, on your own plate, at your spot at the table, using your own utensils? Yes, I know there are kids so allergic that the fact that someone sat at that spot and spread peanut butter is a risk when he unknowingly sits in that spot an hour later…but that’s not true of most peanut-allergic individuals. I think we can do a lot to accommodate the majority of peanut-allergic individuals with minimal inconvenience to people who want peanut butter.</p>
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<p>You could still do this at the college described at the beginning of the thread. The college was not declaring its campus a peanut-free zone. It was simply choosing not to serve peanut products in the dining hall. But that doesn’t mean that peanut products wouldn’t be sold elsewhere or that students would be forbidden to possess them on campus.</p>
<p>At the company where I work – the one with the inconspicuously peanut-free cafeteria – I am not forbidden to have peanuts in my office. There are peanut M&Ms in the vending machines. People may be putting foods that contain peanuts in the shared refrigerator in our little kitchen; there is no rule against it. As far as I can tell, the only parts of the campus that are peanut-free are the main and branch cafeterias. This seems similar to what the college described by the OP was going to do.</p>
<p>I assume that the peanut-free policy at my company’s cafeterias was adopted because it was simpler for the company that runs the facilities than taking complicated steps to prevent cross-contamination in a cafeteria setting where some of the foods are self-serve. Also, if someone with a peanut allergy did die of an allergic reaction at work, the catering company could not be blamed. I assume that the college described by the OP was adopting a peanut-free policy in its dining halls for similar reasons.</p>
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Someone’s possible allergen is not on the mind of someone making a waffle. It just isn’t. The same could be said for any other additive to waffle batter.</p>