Occidental College is a small, residential liberal arts campus of 2,000 students in Los Angeles, with a dining program built around a single dining hall and one late-night retail space. Erik Russell joins Sojo Alex to talk about what has shifted most in student expectations over the past two years: a demand for value, transparency in ingredients and purchasing, and convenience.

Being small lets Occidental move fast. Erik walks through how a food service working group, staffed by student interns, has become the primary channel between students and administration. Students propose ideas, learn to define measurable goals, and drive the campaigns themselves, creating a level of buy-in that top-down solutions rarely achieve.

Key themes in this episode: student engagement, transparency, bottom-up program design.