Writing Feedback / Meat: Mystery and History - Pomona College Supplemental Essay [6]

Could someone let me know if this essay works with the prompt? The deadline is approaching very soon and I'm not sure if I'm addressing the prompt. Thank you!!!!!

Pomona's Critical Inquiry course is required of all first-year students, and is designed to be highly interdisciplinary and engaging. Recent class titles include: 'Molecules of the Mind', 'The Economics of Sin', and 'Punk: Poets, Politics and Provocation'. Imagine you were hired to design and teach a Critical Inquiry course. Describe the title of the class, its contents, and why you chose it.

Meat: Mystery and History

In today's world, the chasm between the facts of food production and the consumer is not only massive; it is widening. America, the land of free speech, has enabled the beef industry to sweep its dirty practices under the carpet, using incredible amounts of money to keep its largely unsustainable and unhealthy business model above water. In the new Critical Inquiry class I have created called "Meat: Mystery and History," students would discover for themselves through personal research the actual business practices of the companies that are lining supermarket shelves with food that is produced clandestinely. This class would be based around political intervention, environmental effects of meat production, and the history of meat, from biblical times to the 21st century. With the implementation of this class into the curriculum at Pomona College, students would be able to lift the dark veil of food production for themselves.

The first quarter of this class would be largely book based. Teachers would work to develop a comprehensive textbook on the history and basic info of meat production, and students would be required to learn the material inside, gaining essential background knowledge. Split into three sections (history of meat, political influence, and environmental impact), this textbook would help deliver raw knowledge to students that might be clueless as to what Congress has to do with factory farms. Every week, undergrads would analyze a new case study on business practices and facilities of big food, ranging from Congressional intervention to the state of chicken feed houses.

In contrast to the first quarter, the second half of the semester would rarely ever see the inside of a classroom. Students would spend most of their time on the road, doing case studies for themselves on the different kind of meat producing farms, analyzing the impacts on the surrounding land and the animals themselves. Administrators would organize a field trip to Sacramento once a year when meat legislation was being reviewed so that students could see actual law-making in action.

This class needs to exist for the very simple reason that there is so much ignorance about food production here in the United States. Very few people know what exactly goes on inside a slaughterhouse, and yet even fewer care. As a passionate environmentalist and political activist myself, I consider meat production to be one of the most embarrassing secrets this country has. If Americans were to step back and look at the meat production debacle from an interdisciplinary standpoint, we would really begin to understand the implication when a McDouble in Southern California tastes the same as one in Beijing. I want to live in a world where the meat industry does not have the power to squeeze animals, corrupt governmental officials, and damage the environment, and Pomona College might just be the first step to making that dream a reality.