And some student organizations, which bring the trucks to campus to help raise funds for their causes and events, are not too thrilled with the new policy.

Food trucks have been on a roll in the Denver area for three years — but until now, there was no policy in place regulating trucks on campus. The Auraria Higher Education Center decided to create a policy for several reasons, according to Jerry Mason, director of Support Services: “One was to create a specific location for the food trucks so that they did not pose an egress issue or safety risk for student pedestrians,” he says. “The other was to create equity and balance among the existing food vendors already on campus. These existing food operations have leases and pay directly back to the campus to keep student fees low and provide scholarship opportunities for students.”

The new policy states that food vendors will only be allowed on campus on Mondays, when there is a maximum of four locations alloted them in the Lawrence Way turnaround between St. Cajetan’s Center and the King Center. The vendors have to pay a $75 fee to get one of those spots; student organizations or departments can make a reservation for the truck through the Student Activities or Student Life offices. Metropolitan State University Denver, Community College of Denver and University of Colorado Denver will rotate reservation priority on a weekly basis.

AHEC has been discussing the policy since April, and finally decided on it last month. Stephanie Madison, a student at MSU Denver and president of the Social Action Through Art Student Organization, says AHEC didn’t consult the student body before making the decision, which she opposes. “A lot of us were upset because we had just found out that week that this policy change was going into place,” Madison says. “No one ever told any of the student clubs in April that this was going to be taking place, or got any feedback from the students.”

Mason insists that the information was available to students. “The policy change was reported by several of the student newspapers on campus and shared with the three institutions that AHEC serves,” he says. “The specific Policy Development & Shared Operations Committee meeting

[where] this policy was finalized was open to the public, and students were given the opportunity to voice their opinion at this meeting.” There is also student representation on the committee itself, he notes.

But Madison, who attended the meeting, says the students weren’t treated fairly. “There was actually a lady yelling at us to get out, that she could no longer listen to us because they have stuff on their agenda,” she recalls. “When a couple students did get up, who had prepared speeches to present in front of the boardmembers, half of the table of boardmembers was talking among themselves, reading things, writing stuff down. They were not paying attention. They were not interested in what we had to say at all.”

Find the entire article by Nathalia Vélez at Westward.com <here>