To eat, or not to eat — that is the question some students face regularly.

Deborah Ballard-Reisch, Ph.D., Kansas Health Foundation distinguished chair in strategic communication and professor in the Elliott School of Communication, has created the Hunger Awareness Initiative (HAI) to research how food insecurity affects the Wichita State community.

“We’re trying to get insight on what the issues are around food insecurity and hunger for college students,” Ballard-Reisch said.

On Saturday, the HAI hosted a dinner and conversation event. Sodexo provided the food at no charge.

Upon arrival, guests were placed at various tables in the RSC. As part of the event, there were guided discussions on the topic of hunger and food insecurity during dinner.

Questions such as “Do you think the way you eat affects your performance in classes?” and “What would you do if you found you had nothing to eat?” were asked and answers were recorded at each table.

All of the information remains confidential. The recordings will then be transcribed and kept as aggregate data that can be analyzed.

“The big issue for college students is we forget to eat, because we’re so busy doing other things,” said Ken Ward, a graduate student who facilitated discussions. “A lot of us will substitute cigarettes and coffee for a meal.”

Ward said students do this to stop the feeling of hunger and it is quicker than having a meal.

The purpose of the dinner was to dig deeper into the reasons students go hungry and why they don’t talk about it.

“There seems to be a stigma when it comes to college students discussing the fact that some of us go hungry,” Ward said. “Not all of us are going hungry because we don’t have time. Some of us are going hungry because we can’t afford food, because we’re paying for tuition or rent.”

To alleviate food insecurity, the HAI created a five-pillar model to increase hunger awareness.

Each of the five areas — events, research, collaborators, community engagement and media — and their relationship to hunger and helping communities, are the foundation of the five pillars.

The five-pillar model has strong recognition, too. The HAI has been invited to a number of regional campuses, including Friends University, Wiley College in Texas and Southwest High School in Kansas City, Mo., to present their model.

“They could use our model to start doing things to raise awareness,” said Shen Tao, a graduate assistant who helped conduct research.

To help fill empty bellies, 15 collection bins are located around campus for donating non-perishable food items.

Bins can be found in each of the residency halls, in addition to Elliott, Ahlberg, Hubbard, Grace-Wilkie, Jabara, Lindquist and Clinton halls, the Heskett Center and the RSC.

Donations will be taken until Thursday morning.