Victory for Arizona State Students: School Adds Vegan Dining Stations

Following Massive Campaign, Largest University in the U.S. Takes Action to Raise School’s peta2 ‘Vegan Report Card’ Grade From a ‘C’ to an ‘A’

For Immediate Release:
December 4, 2014

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Thousands of Arizona State University (ASU) students have spoken up in favor of having more vegan dining options on campus—and today, ASU dining services agreed to start offering at least two hot vegan entrées for every meal at new vegan stations that will soon be installed in every dining hall on all four of ASU’s campuses (Tempe, Polytechnic, Downtown Phoenix, and West).

The move came as the result of meetings with Katherine Gross (the campus representative for peta2, PETA’s youth division), who gathered more than 2,200 student signatures on a petition that called for more vegan options for “health, the environment, and animals.” peta2—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—previously rated ASU a “C” on its Vegan Report Card. The new dining stations will bump the school’s grade up to an “A” when they open next semester.

“No matter what time of day, if you walk into an Arizona State dining hall, you’ll be able to find healthy, humane, and eco-friendly vegan meals,” Gross says. “The new vegan stations are a massive improvement for all ASU students, whether they’ve been vegan for years or they’re simply interested in trying a nutritious plant-based meal.”

Gross and her student group, VegAware, will provide ASU dining services with feedback on the types of vegan entrées that students want to see. The University of Arizona, the University of Colorado–Boulder, and the University of South Florida also offer all-vegan dining stations, but as the nation’s largest public university, ASU’s move will benefit tens of thousands of students across the state.

Students cite a variety of reasons for choosing vegan meals, including reducing their carbon footprints and sparing animals immense suffering on farms, in slaughterhouses, and on the decks of fishing boats. Other students appreciate the health benefits—according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, vegans are less prone to developing heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer than meat-eaters are.

For more information, please visit peta2.com.