Purpose/Objectives: School Food Focus (Focus) developed the Focus Midwest project on the premise that school food professionals (SFPs) could work together to minimize effort and maximize potential to find new or improved products to serve. Focus designed this project as an experiment to explore how and to what extent this collaborative approach…

Objective: This study investigated changes in Michigan school food service directors' farm to school (FTS) participation levels and perspectives since a 2004 survey and factors that would facilitate FTS expansion. Design: Electronic survey census of all Michigan school food service directors. Setting: Michigan kindergarten-12th grade schools.…

Today, a national economy gone bust has derailed Black Americans' plans across the country. Gone are many of the economic gains, small as they were, achieved in the post-segregation era by millions of 1960s generation children and their children. Black America today is beset by job losses, business closures, pay cuts, furloughs, investment and…

The University of Michigan (U-M) has an award-winning history of sustainability initiatives, including research and student activism as well as campus facilities-related efforts. Environmental conservation programs on campus include alternative transportation, energy audits of and improvements to campus buildings, green purchasing, use of…

This article describes the benefits one gets when big schools roll out highly effective eProcurement systems--strategic improvements and savings. eProcurement systems are hot again in higher education, driven by unrelenting cost containment demands, along with industry shifts that have consolidated choices and brought top products to the…

A study of bus transportation was conducted by the Department of Business at Central Michigan University to determine the feasibility of centralizing the transportation function of the seven rural schools in the COOR Intermediate School District in Michigan, who, at the time of the study, operated their own transportation systems. Investigation…

Michigan has long advocated local control of education, a philosophy that particularly applies to purchasing school buses. To counter adverse legal actions stemming from noncompetitive bidding practices, the Michigan School Business Officials and the Michigan Association for Pupil Transportation collaborated to develop a comprehensive,…

Nine rural school districts in Michigan's Thumb/Saginaw Valley area formed a food service cooperative in 1982-83 that has sucessfully reduced purchasing costs without sacrificing quality. In the cooperative's second year of operation, membership has expanded to 16 systems with a dozen others interested in joining. (JBM)