A new three-year partnership between Texas Woman’s and Dairy MAX will bring student-led nutrition education workshops to the Neva Hudiburgh Cochran Wellness Kitchen on the TWU Denton campus.
The collaboration is intended to strengthen evidence-based nutrition education within the Department of Nutrition and Sciences dietetics degree track while emphasizing dairy’s role in health, sustainability and food-as-medicine frameworks. Dairy MAX is a nonprofit dairy council that represents more than 700 dairy farm families across eight states, including Texas. Its mission is “to bring the joy and power of dairy to everyone to create a stronger, healthier tomorrow.”
“The future of healthcare begins at the table,” said Angela Griffin, a TWU assistant clinical professor. “By teaching fellow students that food as medicine — such as whole dairy is a functional food — dietetic students become catalysts for healthier communities.”
The workshops are being conducted in the Cochran Wellness Kitchen, located in the new Health Sciences Center on the TWU Denton campus. The learning experiences align with the center’s teach, train and treat philosophy.
Ten dietetic students will lead the workshops, teaching fellow students from other disciplines how to incorporate different food groups, including dairy, into their diets in a healthy way.
“Dietetic students promoting the knowledge and skills to their healthcare peers empowers future generations to recognize functional foods such as dairy that nourish, protect and promote lifelong health,” Griffin said.
Workshop details
- Partnership: Three-year collaboration between Texas Woman’s and Dairy MAX.
- Location: Neva Hudiburgh Cochran Wellness Kitchen in the new Health Sciences Center on the TWU Denton campus.
- Format: Interdisciplinary workshops focused on incorporating different food groups, including dairy, into diets in a healthy way.
- Student leaders: Ten dietetic students will lead the workshops.
- First workshop: Held in April with seven students from speech, language and pathology, occupational therapy and nursing units.
The partnership began in April with its first workshop. Participants received practical nutrition knowledge and healthy snacks.
Braelyn Bowles, an incoming senior nutrition student, moderated the first session. She led the group through three recipes: cottage-cheese based ranch dressing, homemade crackers with sliced vegetables and homemade hummus. As participants sliced and blended ingredients, Bowles shared nutritional information and dairy facts.
Bowles, a practicing aesthetician who attends TWU full time, became more interested in dietetics after seeing a connection between nutrition and skin health.
“I’ve noticed that your skin, how you age and all those different things are really rooted in what you eat,” Bowles said. “And that’s kind of what made me circle back around to dietetics.”
While Bowles moderated the workshop, her classmates set up workstations and handled food prep. Attendees asked Griffin and the dietetics students questions, and Bowles said she also learned from the experience, particularly about dairy.
“I don’t know everything and I’m still learning,” Bowles noted.
Griffin and Bowles said there are minor ways to improve future workshops, but they viewed the debut as a success with momentum heading into the coming semesters.