Student Regent Cantu Updates board on Stocked for Success
The donor group behind the campaign helped dress her for her first job interview
Student Regent Lisa Cantu, pictured at the 12th Can at Texas A&M University, updated the Board of Regents on her Stocked for Success campaign Thursday.
BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Student Regent Lisa Cantu told The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents on Thursday that her Stocked for Success campaign started with a suit she borrowed from a campus career closet before her first job interview. The donor group that helped start that closet a decade ago now sponsors her campaign.
Cantu, a first-generation Aggie from Mission and a doctoral student in educational administration at Texas A&M University, launched Stocked for Success in September with the Chancellor’s Century Council. Over the past three months, she has toured food pantries and career closets at Texas A&M in College Station, the Higher Education Center at McAllen, Tarleton State University, Texas A&M International University and Texas A&M University-Central Texas. She plans to visit all 12 A&M System universities before her one-year term ends May 31.
The suit came from the Career Closet in Texas A&M’s Memorial Student Center. That closet had help. In 2015, the Chancellor’s Century Council, a group of donors who support A&M System projects, gave $70,000 to start career closets across the A&M System, including $20,000 for the one at Texas A&M.
Stocked for Success spotlights food pantries, career closets and other programs that help students at the 12 A&M System universities meet basic needs, stay enrolled and prepare for careers. It builds on programs the universities already run rather than creating a new one, and it uses videos, social media and news coverage to reach students.
Cantu’s address profiled programs across the A&M System, from food package lockers at A&M-Central Texas to monthly food giveaways at Izzy’s Food Pantry at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. A&M-Central Texas set up the lockers so students can pick up pantry food anonymously, easing the stigma some feel about being seen at a food pantry.
Demand for these programs is growing. Use of Tarleton State’s Purple Pantry has risen 75% over four years.
Cantu said breaking the stigma matters as much as stocking the shelves.
“Students should never be ashamed to walk into a food pantry or a career closet,” she said. “It doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard enough. Sometimes we all need a little boost, and asking for one is a step forward.”
Board Chairman Robert Albritton said Cantu went looking for the need herself.
“Lisa didn’t wait to be handed a project. She went to the campuses, talked with students and the staff who keep these shelves full, and came back with a plan,” Albritton said. “This fall, the board adopted a strategic plan that starts with student success. Stocked for Success is what that plan looks like outside the boardroom.”
Cantu also told regents she has been collecting donations so the Higher Education Center at McAllen can open its own career closet, giving Texas A&M students in the Rio Grande Valley the same access students have in College Station.
Chancellor Glenn Hegar said the council’s 2015 gift is paying off in a way no one could have planned.
“Our Century Council members stocked those closets without knowing who would walk in,” Hegar said. “One of those students now sits on the Board of Regents, and she’s telling students all over Texas to walk through the same door. When a student can stop worrying about groceries or what to wear to an interview, that student can focus on finishing a degree.”
Cantu closed her address by talking about the students she hasn’t met yet.
“I was that student once,” she said. “Someone had a suit waiting for me. I want every one of them to find the doors open and the shelves full.”
To learn more or support campus pantries and closets, visit tamus.edu/chancellors-century-council/stocked-for-success.
