The faculty voted to support the exclusive sale of fair trade coffee products on campus by an overwhelming majority of 54-3-7 at a faculty meeting on Thursday.Aramark's Director of Dining Services Barbara Laverdiere said she had not been notified of the faculty poll until the Justice contacted her. She said in an e-mail that Aramark was in the process of evaluating what changes would need to be made to dining services in order to sell fair trade coffee.

The vote was initiated by Prof. Gordon Fellman (SOC) at the urging of the Fair Trade Brigade and with the support of the Student Union.

"I think it's a great student initiative," Fellman said. "It's a way to address the unjust incomes of people in the third world whose needs are classically ignored."

Prof. Carmen Sirianni (SOC) told the Justice that all the professors from the economics department, even those interested in social justice, chose to abstain. He suggested that a forum or group comprised of students, administrators and faculty, including economics professors, might better resolve the issue.

"I'd like to see a more open, democratic, informed, deliberative process than what happened at yesterday's faculty meeting," he said the following day.

Prof. Rachel McCulloch (ECON), who identified herself as one of the abstaining professors, compared fair trade products to organic products, which are also a higher costing consumer choice.

"Despite the similarity of the terms, and the fact that coffee is traded internationally, this is not about free trade," she said.

McCulloch said that her concern is not with fair trade's violation of free trade principles, but with allowing consumers the choice to pay more for products produced under certain conditions.

"The issue here is whether the choice should be made collectively or individually, i.e., whether both products should be offered or just one," McCulloch said.

Lauren Abramowitz '07, director of the Free Trade Brigade, said the Brigade expected economist opposition because fair trade runs counter to the principles of a free trade economy. She said that she respectfully disagrees with that opinion, and that rather than being "anti-free trade," the Brigade's mission is to educate the campus on the principles of fair trade.

"[Fair trade] makes a much bigger difference to workers in the long run than free trade makes to those who are already wealthy," Abramowitz said.

In the Student Union elections last March, the Brigade asked students whether they would pay 20 more cents to ensure that their coffee was "fair trade." Roughly 80 percent of voting students chose to "strongly agree."

Since then, the Student Union has collaborated with the Brigade to eliminate non-fair trade coffee at Java City locations.