What's Happening at JSI

Stalker Institute Celebrates 20th Anniversary
The John C. Stalker Institute (JSI) at Framingham State College celebrated its 20th anniversary Thursday, October 18, with a reception.

JSI, funded by the Massachusetts Department of Education, aims to improve the health of the Commonwealth’s children by educating professionals concerned with child nutrition and healthy nutrition environments. JSI’s audience is school nutrition program directors, managers, production/service staff, school administrators, teachers and other school professionals, child care providers, and nurses.

JSI holds numerous professional development workshops throughout the year, both online and in person, and has an “A List” of healthy vending and snack foods. The goal JSI is to help schools integrate nutrition education and services into 1) child nutrition programs, 2) coordinated school health education, and 3) physical education programs.

Speakers at the 20th anniversary celebration included Timothy Flanagan, president of Framingham State College; Patricia Plummer, chancellor of the Board of Higher Education, Kathleen Millett, administrator; Masachusetts Department of Education; Maureen Rankin, acting special nutrition program director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and Chad Stalker, grandson of John Stalker.

John Stalker, the institute’s namesake, was the director of the Massachusetts Bureau of Nutrition Education and School Food Services between 1945 and 1982. He devoted his life to the betterment of nutrition education and school food service and was responsible for expanding child nutrition programs in schools throughout Massachusetts and instrumental in the passage of the National School Lunch Act of 1946.