Grace Fung | Student Life

Dining Services seeks to provide more nutritional information on its website, in response to criticism and the making of the WUSTL Dining application. Mozzarella sticks, for example, is not listed in the menu.

Student Life reported earlier this year that Dining Services was behind in posting nutritional information, and that information available was, in certain instances, incorrect. Bear’s Den, for example, rarely serves tater tots in the prescribed 12-tot portion, and Paws & Go provides information for a four ounce frozen yogurt portion that is typically out of stock.

Dining Services Executive Chef David Murphy said the effort to update the information is complex and ongoing and is highly dependent on student and chef feedback.

Chefs develop recipes based on the ingredients in their inventory. Murphy then looks at submissions to make sure they are acceptable before submitting them to the school dietician. The overall process, from idea to fully vetted recipe, can take between two days and two weeks.

Murphy said there are numerous difficulties that keep Dining Services from posting nutritional information for all of its offerings.

“The finish line is ever elusive,” Murphy said. “It never stops because we are always changing our recipes, changing our options, changing what the stations make; we are looking to be ahead of the game. If you ask me tomorrow what we will be working on, it will be different than it was today because it is always changing.”

Dining Services recently contacted Wasabi, the provider of packaged sushi on campus, and has made the nutritional information of each sushi package available to students.

It is also working to post the nutritional information for “Quick Bites,” the small snacks next to the registers in the library and all campus cafés.

Director of Marketing Jill Duncan said that while Dining Services may never achieve its goal of listing all items served at all locations and times, it is making significant improvements.

“There will never be a place where we go ‘we are done,’ because we change things constantly and seasonally, and we want to keep things new and fresh. I think we have, however, come a really long way,” she said.

Murphy noted that other Bon Appétit clients, including Duke University, have called the University’s Dining Services to ask how it creates its recipes and finds relevant nutritional information to reproduce the process at their facilities.

Murphy and Duncan said that Dining Services continues to seek student feedback, which is the driving force behind the changes it pursues.

“At the end of it, our goal is to have variety, options, creative cuisine and correct information so that when you make the choices you feel good about the choices,” Murphy said.

While some students have been dissatisfied with the lack of nutritional information available online in the past, others have found the online information helpful.

“I am a vegetarian, and I [find] being a vegetarian here extremely easy,” junior Julianne Gagnon said. “There’s a lot of information online, but most people know about [the website].”

Sophomore Rebecca Fogel said she understands the University’s challenges in keeping nutritional information up to date.

“I think [Bon Appétit] did a good job. I wouldn’t expect the dining hall to have all this info online,” Fogel said.

Danni Liu | Student Life

Detailed nutrition facts are unavailable for many foods around campus such as prepackaged items like salads.

Although Dining Services posts nutritional information, including calorie and fat counts online, it is not comprehensive and is sometimes misleading. The information is missing for many items.

Sophomore Christa Stathopoulos expressed concern for the lack of calorie information available for certain pastry items such as scones, a popular late night snack.

“We have a right to know what we are eating and what is going into our food,” she said.

Nutritional information can be accessed through the Washington University Dining Services webpage under “Menus” by location. Clicking on the product will provide the nutritional information for the given serving size. For instance, a Buffalo chicken wrap at Bear’s Den has 668 calories with 142 from fat.

The posted nutritional information for some items is misleading. The information for frozen yogurt is listed for a four-ounce serving even though the smallest cup available at dining locations is an eight-ounce size.

Connie Diekman, director of University nutrition, acknowledges that many menu items do not have nutritional information available yet because many new items were added to the menu this summer.

On her desk sits a stack of papers with nutritional information that have yet to be entered. She says the person in charge of entering all of the information has not yet had a chance.

According to Diekman, her main objective is to provide students with healthy dining alternatives on campus. She encourages students to speak up about what they want to see changed within campus dining.

“We really do rely upon the students to bring up the questions when something is not there. Input is always very important and definitely does impact how we do what we do,” Diekman said. “The goal is to have healthy options, not to force people to only eat healthy. It is about balance but we need to have both options to achieve balance.”

Dining Services has introduced several new initiatives to encourage student health.

New “quick bites” are being designed to sustain students for a long period of time, rather than just spike their blood sugar levels. Truffles and dark chocolate bark can now be found at dining locations, replacing items such as yogurt covered pretzels and Swedish fish.

Dining Services is also working to reinforce its policy on serving three-ounce protein servings.

There is a national trend of posting nutritional informational on site in eateries. Both Starbucks and Jamba Juice provide the calorie content for their drinks and pastry items on their menus.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which Obama signed in 2010, requires that chain restaurants list nutritional information on their menus. This stipulation has yet to go into effect.

Nutrition facts are not available at Washington University dining locations.

Diekman suggests that students who notice items absent or misrepresented on the Dining Services website bring them to her attention.

Last year, Dining Services began composting extra food from its kitchens—food that had not reached the consumer. Between the Village, DUC and Bear’s Den, Dining Services’ composting program diverted over 80,000 pounds of pre-consumer food waste from the landfill last year.

The new program, introduced this fall, involves Dining Services placing a single composting bin at the Bear’s Den dish return.

Dining Services chose to start the program on a small scale to work through any issues, according to Jill Duncan, director of marketing for Dining Services.

She noted that Bear’s Den was chosen to pilot the program because of its proximity to the Dining Services office and its accessibility to new students.

To draw attention to the program and minimize compost contamination, Dining Services and the Office of Sustainability have been working to add signs to the dish return area.

The University has also begun a “Compost Ambassadors” program, which involves placing representatives at the dish return during high-activity times to tell students where to dispose of their food waste.

If the University’s compost has more than a 10 percent contamination rate, it will incur charges from the composting company.

Students are generally supportive of the initiative.

“I use [the compost bin] whenever it’s there,” freshman Eric Neiman said. “It seems like a good program.”

Some added that composting is an easy way to make an environmental impact.

“[It’s] better than throwing [waste] in the trash,” he said. “It’s a small, incredibly easy thing to do.”

Other students, however, don’t find composting quite as effortless.

“It’s slightly annoying, but I still do it,” freshman Alana Deutsch said. “It just takes that much longer [to compost].”

While the University’s composting initiative began as an effort through only Dining Services, the University foresees a campus-wide post-consumer composting program sometime in the future.

Presently, however, the University hasn’t made any immediate plans to expand the program beyond Bear’s Den.

“At some point in the future, hopefully we can expand elsewhere on campus,” Sustainability Coordinator Will Fischer said. “It’s been a learning process for us…because we have to educate the community on what can and cannot be composted.”

The University is also changing the way it calculates overhead costs per plan.

The new on-campus meal plans will all have the same built-in overhead fee. The new overhead will be averaged over all of the plans, meaning that small meal plans will include a larger fee than in the past and large plans will include a smaller fee than before.

“The overhead on all five plans was, in essence, you had more overhead if you had a larger plan, which in the eyes of the committee was not fair so it discouraged people from buying an appropriately large plan,” said Paul Schimmele, assistant to the director of operations.

According to Schimmele, people often buy the smallest meal plan possible to avoid high overhead costs, and then run out of meal points early in the year.

Students say that the changes will not affect their choice when purchasing a meal plan.

Senior Tim Chuang still plans on buying a small meal plan, and buying additional campus card points if the need arises.

“I will still buy the smallest meal plan and add more points once I run out. Unless they incur extra fees for adding after meal points [have] expired, I’m not going to change anything,” said Chuang.

In the past, more expensive meal plans have included a greater fee than less expensive ones.

Schimmele said that these changes are taking place in order to equalize the overhead costs built into each meal plan.

Schimmele also said that in the past students have complained that it is not fair for these built-in overhead charges to move on a sliding scale, depending on the size of the meal plan.

The overhead from the meal plans pays for equipment, administrative costs, employee salaries and the debt on university properties including the Danforth University Center and the new South 40 dining facility.

In the past there have been five meal plans for on-campus students, an off-campus meal plan and a Greek-housing meal plan. This year there will be three on-campus meal plans, an on-campus apartment meal plan, an off-campus meal plan and a Greek-housing meal plan.

The three on-campus plans have been renamed Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Students who buy small plans are unhappy about this additional cost.

“No, I don’t agree with the new meal plan. Students have to pay extra money under this change, I don’t think students should pay more money,” sophomore David Randolph said.

The new meal plans were available on housing forms this spring.

With additional reporting by Wei-Yin Ko

Students on those floors have reported damaged property. Wet items were sent for dry cleaning that was paid for by the Washington University. Students who were unable to sleep in their rooms because of the flooding are being relocated to dorms with empty rooms.

The relocated students will be returned to their rooms by midday Saturday. Their possessions are also expected to be returned by then.

The University had been testing the sprinkler system on Lee 2 when pipes on both floors burst. Water flowed out of the pipes for three to four minutes.

Alex Ellis, a Lee 2 resident, said he heard a noise that sounded like a “loud fan.” When he looked down the hall, he saw a pipe gushing water that was seeping toward his room. He shut his door and alerted the rest of his floormates.

“I just stood there in the water, because I didn’t know what to do,” Ellis said. “I threw everything on my bed, so I was lucky. It didn’t look like there was too much damage, but other people had some stuff [damaged].”

Chris Harris, another Lee 2 resident, said that a valve on the water sprinkler system was loose, and burst when it was tested.

“It was like a big water spout,” Harris said of the burst pipe.

Voting takes place from 8 a.m. on Tuesday until 8 p.m. on Wednesday on the SU website at su.wustl.edu.

Emergency Support Team

Appealing for: $14,959 for each year

Service: EST provides free medical services for the campus community.

EST trains students to deal with emergency medical problems. EST members can respond to and treat injuries ranging from finger cuts to alcohol-related injuries to heart attacks.

“We treat a lot of patients who otherwise might not get care because maybe they’d be afraid to call,” said senior Stephanie Higgins, president of EST. “I think a lot of people are more comfortable calling a student service than they would be calling the city ambulance service.”

EST’s money goes toward medical equipment and the upkeep of the group’s two trucks, for which they pay insurance in addition to maintenance costs.

Two years ago, EST appealed for $10,440 per year. The group requested a larger amount of money after Student Health Services pulled $8000 from their funding this fall.

The group is requesting only an additional $4,000 because its budgeting system was restructured. Traditionally, students are trained to become medics and then are reimbursed training costs. Now, they will be reimbursed based on how many hours they serve.

Why block funding?

EST needs to have working medical equipment and a working truck in order to function. When equipment breaks, it must be fixed immediately.

“We don’t have time to submit appeals to SU that can take four or five days, and a lot of times we don’t have the time to wait for that,” Higgins said.

EST also replaces most of its equipment every two weeks.

Uncle Joe’s

Appealing for: $6,000 for each year

Service: Uncle Joe’s is a peer counseling organization. It has offices on the South 40 and is also reachable by phone.

Peer counselors at Uncle Joe’s say they are ready to listen to any student problem, big or small.

“You can come in and talk to us about literally anything from whether you’re stressed out or have a friend with an eating disorder,” said junior Rachael Holley, the group’s treasurer.

The money will go toward training counselors, which includes buying DVDs to educate them about the issues students might have, paying pager and phone expenses, and buying public relations materials.

Uncle Joe’s has received block funding for several years, including $5,916 for each of the past two years.

Why block funding?

Uncle Joe’s applies for block funding in order to preserve its confidentiality policy.

“If we were to appeal, [SU] would probably ask us for records, like how many people come in the office and discussing how important our service is,” Holley said. “We must keep that confidential.”

“Part of what makes us such a great organization is we don’t tell anyone how many people we get, we don’t keep back files. We’d have to compromise that confidentiality if we had to tell Treasury that kind of thing,” Holley said.

Campus Y

Appealing for: $42,050 for each year

Service: Campus Y is the umbrella organization of 26 community service groups on campus. These programs fall under four categories: advocacy and community outreach, education and children, leadership, and mentoring and children.

One in seven students on campus participates in Campus Y programs, according to senior Benjamin Stein, the student director.

Last year, Campus Y provided 46,176 hours of community service to 12,423 people locally, nationally and internationally.

Programs range from working with children or the elderly to cleaning up polluted areas to playing with animals in shelters.

Campus Y’s money is divided among its programs, funding costs such as transportation, large dice for programs in which students spend time with the elderly, and basketballs for a mentoring program with children.

Two years ago, Campus Y received block funding for $41,470 per year.

Why block funding?

Because Campus Y has so many programs, its leaders prefer the flexibility of a set amount of money.

“It makes it easier for us to have a lump sum of money [so] we can divide it up and we can move things around depending on if programs need more money and things like that,” Stein said.

Campus Y is also open to starting new programs so that when a new program is proposed, the group will shift some money from an existing group to the new one.

The Hatchet

Appealing for: $81,407 for each year

Service: The Hatchet staff produces the University’s annual yearbook. This year marks the 100th anniversary of “The Hatchet,” and this year’s publication will be 224 pages long. The staff of 15 students is unpaid.

Last year, the Hatchet requested block funding and was denied. The Hatchet hasn’t received block funding since 1991.

Why block funding?

Currently, the Hatchet staff orders about 450 yearbooks each year and charges $75 for each. About 250 students order one each year, although some seniors also order yearbooks from their earlier years of college.

With block funding, the Hatchet would order 6350 yearbooks in order to give one to every undergraduate. By buying in bulk, the Hatchet could buy the yearbooks at $12.82 each. The funding from SU would pay the $12.82 per yearbook, so students would not have to pay extra for the yearbooks.

A pilot program to expand the number of locations that accept the Washington University Campus Card as a method of payment is currently in the works.

Currently, the Campus Card system allows student IDs to be used for a multitude of purposes, including laundry, vending machine, food and campus bookstore purchases.

Dining Services is collaborating with local merchants to introduce Campus Card to a few local eateries by the end of spring break. At this stage, interested establishments include Kayak’s and Bobo Noodle House. No binding agreements have been made yet, however.

Because both Kayak’s and Bobo are located at 276 N. Skinker Blvd., a University-owned building directly across from the Danforth Campus, these establishments are logical places to start the program.

Paul Schimmele, assistant to the director of operations for Dining Services, spoke at a recent Student Union Senate meeting to gain students’ perspectives on the process. Schimmele and Dining Services will continue to work with Student Union and other student groups to incorporate student perspectives.

Kevin Reddi, general manager of Kayak’s, hopes to increase the accessibility of Kayak’s to the student body with the program.

“I want to make our services available to the students that cannot make it over here with regular cash, Kevin Reddi, general manager of Kayak’s Coffee, said. “I want our café to be available to the entire student body.”

Kayak’s will have to pay for the hardware that is required to scan the cards as well as a service charge to the University.

The owners of Kayak’s hope that an increase in popularity among Washington University students will offset the costs of the new technology. Kayak’s and Bobo will maintain their regular prices.

While the University would receive a percentage of sales made using Campus Card, this cost should be offset by an increase in the number of customers and purchases.

Students are looking forward to the expansion of the Campus Card.

“I don’t know if I would necessarily go there more, but it would definitely be nice to have a Wash. U. debit card type thing that works at off-campus places,” sophomore Vivek Gupta said.

Reddi believes that if the program takes off, the University will not have a problem operating it.

Schimmele plans to eventually create an office that is dedicated to the Campus Card program. At this office, students would be able to fix any problem that arises with Campus Card at a single and centralized place, rather than going to the Office of Residential Life or the Office of Student Records.

If all goes as planned, the money that the University earns from this program will go toward expanding it further.

“We will be seeking student opinions, and if we feel the pilot is successful and we expand this, we want to know where students would like to go,” Schimmele said. “What are our priorities, what makes sense? It is largely driven by a desire by undergraduates; it also serves graduates, faculty and staff. We will speak to them as well.”

Halal food for Muslims is similar to kosher options for Jewish people: Both are guided by regulations about the way the animals are killed. Without Halal options, observant Muslims on campus must eat either fish or vegetarian dishes.

According to Nadeem Siddiqui, resident district manager for Dining Services, the change would not be expensive or demanding.

In order to conform to Halal standards, Dining Services would need to order different meat, use specific pans to avoid cross-contamination and avoid using any alcohol in food preparation.

“I don’t think there’d be major costs, but that’s why were doing some investigation,” Siddiqui said. “We want to make sure our staff is trained, we have the right equipment and there’s the right demand.”

Freshman Nabeel Moon, treasurer of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), estimated that between 70 and 100 people have directly appealed to MSA to seek Halal options, but that many others would be interested.

“Discussions have been happening for the past five years, but they haven’t gone as far as they have right now,” Moon said. “The interest is coming from the MSA and the MSA at the law school.”

The association is working with an organization called STLHalal, which is working to bring Halal meats to the campus of Saint Louis University as well.

MSA is also cooperating with the Diversity Affairs Council to propose a resolution to SU Senate encouraging Dining Services to offer Halal meats.

The association hopes to start offering Halal food in Bear’s Den and The Village, eventually branching out the DUC and Ursa’s if demand is sufficient.

“It’ll be something that they don’t have right now, where the demand will be high,” Moon said. “It won’t just be for Muslims, it’ll be for everyone. There’s no difference in the taste of the food, it’s just that the meat is from a different source.”

Moon added that the introduction of Halal foods would appeal to more than just students.

“It’ll open Bear’s Den to the whole Muslim community in St. Louis, depending on how the food is,” Moon said.

According to Siddiqui, additions to the menu will mostly mean ensuring that they will match student demand and interest.

“We’re trying to make it economical and viable, making sure it follows the need of the Muslim students,” Siddiqui said. “Dining Services tries to look for ways to serve the community in the best way possible.”

Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010

Maintain a calorie balance over time to achieve and sustain a healthy weight

• Improve eating and physical activity behaviors.
• Control calorie intake to manage body weight.
• Reduce sedentary behaviors and increase physical activity.
• Consume appropriate number of calories for each life stage.

Focus on consuming nutrient-dense foods and beverages

• Reduce sodium intake.
• Replace saturated fatty acids with unsaturated fatty acids.
• Consume less than 300 milligrams of dietary cholesterol each day.
• Limit trans fat consumption.
• Consume fewer calories from solid fats and added sugars.
• Increase whole grain consumption and decrease intake of refined grains.
• Consume alcohol in moderation if consuming at all.
• Increase fruit and vegetable consumption.
• Consume fat-free or low-fat milk products.
• Choose a variety of proteins, including fish, beans, nuts and seeds.
• Replace fatty proteins with lower-fat proteins (like seafood).

As federal officials emphasize the importance of healthy eating, the newly released 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans challenge Washington University dining menus to meet higher standards.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services have administered new guidelines out of concern for Americans’ overall health, as obesity, heart disease and other illnesses linked to food have become increasingly prevalent in the last decade.

Washington University Dining Services will work with these new guidelines to continue providing healthy options for students.

The government agencies advise Americans to curb overeating habits to maintain the proper caloric intake specific to their age and physical condition.

The report recommends that half of each plate contain fruits and vegetables. It also encourages eating whole grains with daily meals and choosing foods with higher amounts of potassium, dietary fiber, calcium and vitamin D.

Americans are also encouraged to vary protein in their diets and to consume more fat-free and low-fat milk products.

Although sodium intake recommendations have not changed since 2005, the report continues to warn against high intake, setting 2,300 milligrams as the maximum daily amount. It also advises a reduced intake of 1,500 milligrams for African Americans, people with hypertension, diabetes or chronic kidney disease, or those older than 51.

This is the first time the government has advised people to eat less. The report directly advises the American people that they should drink water, not soda, and manage their caloric intake.

The report cited concerns that 72 percent of men and 64 percent of women are overweight, while approximately one-third of all citizens are obese.

“Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 is being released at a time of rising concern about the health of the American population,” the report said. “Its recommendations accommodate the reality that a large percentage of Americans are overweight or obese and/or at risk of various chronic disease.”

This year’s guidelines are considered to be the strongest ever released.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has promoted the new guidelines and shared his hopes for Americans of all ages.

“The bottom line is that most Americans need to trim our waistlines to reduce the risk of developing diet-related chronic disease,” Vilsack told The New York Times. “Improving our eating habits is not only good for every individual and family, but also for our country.”

According to Connie Diekman, director of University nutrition, Washington University sees healthy eating as a priority and works to provide students with nutritious choices.

“We have used the dietary guidelines to plan menus since I have been with the University,” Diekman said. “We will use the 2010 guidelines as we make menu and recipe changes.”

The University is shifting toward offering a wider variety of healthier options, and adding more fruits and vegetables is an area in which it continues to improve. Although pasta, pizza and salads are the primary dishes with vegetables, University chefs are working to develop more entrées that include vegetables. Meanwhile, steamed vegetables are available in all dining locations on campus and can be added as a side to complement vegetable-deficient dishes.

In addition to selling fresh fruit, Dining Services incorporates fruit in salsas, prepackaged salads and pastries. Dining Services also hopes that “Connie’s Choice,” a brand-new healthy option initiative, will make it easier for students to eat well.

While the University frames its menus around the 2,300-milligram recommended maximum daily intake of sodium, some items have more sodium than the recommended amount. Because students request these dishes, they are still on the menu.

“Our goal is to offer options that allow our students to eat in a manner that helps them follow the guidelines,” Diekman said. “It’s a combined responsibility. The options have to be there, but the individuals make the choices. This is no different from the decisions, in my perspective, of, ‘Should I go out this weekend, or should I do those five papers?’”

While some students grumble over reduced portion sizes, others complain about the inaccessibility of healthy choices. Diekman concluded that the University wants to do what is best for its students and seeks to attain a happy medium among student demands.

“We will never be able to please everyone all the time,” Diekman said. “Therefore, our goal is to provide the options that students indicate they’d like to have, to provide the information to help those who want to make better choices make those choices, and then to listen to their feedback. We’re doing what we think is a good way to help students eat healthier, but if you have better suggestions, we want to know them.”

A sophomore, jumping over a chair to get into his room, hit his head on a sprinkler on the ceiling, which exploded with an odorous fluid that flooded the surrounding suites.

Students promptly left the building, and University Facilities shut off the water supply to the area. No one was hurt, though residents of the flooded suites will be displaced for at least three days.

An ambulance crew and police officers arrived at Wheeler before Facilities, which was already managing an issue with a frozen pipe in the Wohl Garage.

According to David French, a mechanic employed by the University, the sprinkler triggered an alarm, which notified the ambulance.

“If they get an alarm, they automatically come,” French said. “If they do get here [before Facilities handles the situation], it’s 500 or a thousand dollars.”

Students sat calmly in the lobby watching the Super Bowl as the resident assistant spoke with the ambulance crew and a resident moved his dripping belongings into storage.

Woodard Cleaning & Restoration Services responded to an emergency call and arrived to handle the water damage. According to Ed Litty, a restoration project manager for Woodard, the team would be there for several hours working on the area.

After vacuuming the water that saturated the hallway carpet, Litty said that the workers planned to strip the molding off the wall to remove wet insulation and insert drying equipment. They also planned to disinfect the area with an antimicrobial.

“It’s going to reek with the standing water in the pipes,” said one of the suitemates. “But we didn’t have that much property damage—we got our stuff off the floor pretty quickly.”