Campus dining debate consumes student body
Posted September 30, 2009 at 2:45 am
Bon Appétit Resident District Manager Nadeem Siddiqui answers a question about the decision to switch from Einstein’s to Companion bagels last year, at the dining forum on Tuesday. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)
While long lines and waits are not trademarks of Washington University, any student entering a dining area on campus during its busiest hours may be met with a disarray of people from all different directions.
To minimize any disorderliness or inconveniences in the dining experience, Student Union, the Congress of the South 40 and the University administration have made efforts to address these issues. Tuesday night saw an open forum where students could voice their concerns about campus dining and hear about future plans from school officials.
Around 35 students were present—many of whom were from SU and the CS40.
Steve Hoffner, associate vice chancellor for operations, and Nadeem Siddiqui, resident district manager for Bon Appétit, served on a panel to respond to questions from students, along with other officials from on-campus dining facilities.
Representatives from SU and the CS40 said they were pleased with the forum.
“A lot of people are uncomfortable with the current changes, so [this forum] puts a face on Dining Services,” said sophomore Hannah Bowling, speaker of CS40.
“Students could feel they could have a chance to make themselves heard,” said junior Greg Schweizer, chair for the SU Campus Services Committee.
Long lines
Dining Services is working on reducing congestion. Part of this effort is integrating WebFood into the dining experience so that students can pick up their food in the Danforth University Center (DUC) without having to stand in line.
Dining Services is looking into implementing WebFood on the South 40 in addition to the DUC to help relieve lines there, too. One SU senator suggested making an iPhone application for WebFood.
Even with WebFood, long lines will still exist—but not without reason. Because chefs prepare food in front of students and allow students to pick exactly what they want on their plates, lines naturally move more slowly. On the upside, the food remains fresh, is not prepackaged and is made to each individual’s requirements.
“We can get rid of the lines, but I’m pretty sure we’d have a dining service you wouldn’t be happy with and we wouldn’t be happy with,” Hoffner said.
Dining hours
Customer counts are being kept campus-wide to determine volume differences throughout the day and in different locations. Many students requested later-night dining—especially in the Village. With customer counts, Dining Services can figure out when is best to close—preventing resources from being wasted—and allocate resources to later hours.
The upper level of the South 40 House only contains one station open on Fridays and Saturdays, as last year’s customer count indicated that only a trickle of students went during those nights.
Ursa’s hours have been extended this year to better accommodate students.
Health
Some students expressed concerns that portion sizes are smaller this year. Dining Services said, however, that they have made portions to fit the Food and Drug Administration national standards in the past four years.
Dining Services is also working to serve as much fresh and locally grown food as possible. For Siddiqui, the most important part of his job is to ensure that the food students eat is “the safest, cleanest and doesn’t have the chemicals—it doesn’t have the bad stuff, but it has the best stuff.”
Money
Dining Services is charged by the University not to make money and not to lose it, but to break even, which factors into how the hours for each dining location are decided.
Currently, undergraduates bear the burden of overhead charges, as each meal point costs more than $1. Part of the rationality behind this is that undergraduates are the main reason why dining facilities remain open until the late hours.
The administration, however, is looking to change this system. One suggestion is to increase the price of all campus food by 10 percent so everyone bears the overhead charge.
With this increase, undergraduates would actually receive a discount with their meal plans.
Locations
Most of Dining Services’ focus has been on the DUC and the South 40, which some have objected to.
“We feel the Village may have been a bit neglected,“ Hoffner said.
Subway’s contract with the University ends in June. A committee is in the works to look into whether students would prefer to keep Subway or add another fast food eatery.
In the past, the University has housed a Chick-Fil-A, whose contract was not renewed due to its unhealthy perception among students, and a Taco Bell, which closed after students protested the unfair treatment of its employees.
Construction
Construction has had a significant impact on dining on the South 40. One difference is that students are now eating out of disposable boxes instead of on china plates, because the South 40’s facilities do not currently have a dishwasher.
As there is no pizza oven on the South 40, Dining Services does not serve pizza there.
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On September 30, 2009 at 7:43 am Johnny B said
I am a junior and have seen tremendous improvement with the dining program last year; I hope that all of us recognize their hard work
On September 30, 2009 at 7:47 am Bobby said
Dining’s top administrators and the entire team should be commended for their efforts and changes they have brought to the dining program last year, this year is a bit challenging but everyone knows that next year a wonderful environment will be created for south 40…so all of us need to be patient and supportive
On September 30, 2009 at 7:50 am Jean h said
I love the idea of open forums, when will we have bookstore, parking, police, library administrators, etc. come and explain openly their program as dining has done
On September 30, 2009 at 1:27 pm Patrick Seaworth said
this is a really common misconception that has spread across campus over the past few years, that improvements in services (of any kind) should negate the need for more improvements or for those improvements to be actual improvements. the duc was nice, and yet the way it was built leeds to systemic issues that can’t be address given the way in which the building was constructed. dining services doesn’t need to take counts of students to know that the village, right next to the row and upperclassman dorms, should be open late,etc. regardless of the hours of various dining locations, the dining locations should be open with at least one 24 hr location on campus and which once it is is irrelevant so long as there is one to which students who haven’t anticipated being hungry have a safe location within walking distance from which to obtain food other than vending machines with respect to health concerns of those students needing food (the same reasoning for keeping whispers open 24 hrs). the old bears den never had ropes and lines and the students were able to work everything out on their own (even during drunk peek hours) just by bothering to take a second to ask the people around them if they had ordered yet, and then the rest fell on the cooks to remember what they are placing onto the grill (which even the high ones were able to do), and the atmoshpere was there in one that was friendly and where no one really was bothered by sitting there a few minutes while waiting on food because everyone was sociable and it was a place to socialize while waiting on food even during peek hours, thus leading to the students not having to facebook later in the day while studying. yes, to a certain extent dining services have improved, however, the improvements themselves need to usual tweaking of beta versions, and that the services are ‘new and improved’ does not allow for them to take a pass on truly improving services by merely adding new services that may themselves be in need of improvements. – best,ps
On September 30, 2009 at 2:54 pm student said
I was at the dining forum last night, and I believe they said that in order to keep the village open later at night it would cost approximately $350 per hour. So… to keep it open for an extra three hours would be $1050. Dining Services isn’t so sure that it can make that amount of money later at night in the Village.
On October 2, 2009 at 10:41 am Patrick Seaworth said
And, that would be the point. That their inefficiencies are presented to the student body as fact of acceptance, that negatively impacts student’s dining options. Rather than solving those problems and then presenting the solutions to the student body, they instead present the problem as a reason not to solve the issue at hand and as a reason not to improve their service. That the students are reasonable and look at those obstacles is something they are taking advantage of, and something that becomes part of the culture. Where students being presented the obstacles that the administrators and various groups encounter rather than the solutions to those barriers to service becomes the norm that goes unquestioned rather than he exception held up as a wrong that needs to be addressed. – best, ps
On October 4, 2009 at 7:21 pm Patrick Seaworth said
As my previous response to the above comment (Student, September 30, 2009) was removed from this blog, I here rephrase, reword, and resubmit it, so that it (Offered by a member of the WUSTL community in the hope of bettering the WUSTL community in the newspaper’s self-designated open forum for heartfelt discussion, be it for or against any item) can be heard despite its open and flagrant disagreement with the Editorial Staff, who have continued to poo-poo mediocrity beyond any, rational, reasonable, and ethical standard that should be employed within a student reporting and editorial board.
The price of the cost per hour of Bon Appetite keeping Lopata open is what is deemed a market inefficiency (Here listed as a market inefficiency, because Bon Appetite has a monopoly on the dining services, and thus creates the market, and therein the market inefficiencies, with the obvious irrelevant exception of Subway’s presence on campus.), that was not solved when they last had the chance to do so.
In the addition of services, those services added should have cured the current ailments of the business model currently in place. I.e. since the dining services new, prior to the opening of the duc and the new facilities on the South 40, that the cost of keeping Lopata open were sufficiently high that they did not believe it feasible to do so, they have a responsibility to present and execute additions to their services in a manner that cures that ail rather than in a manner that simply presents for the students new services rather than better services. Since I first ate food prepared by Bon Appetite the service has decreased dramatically as it concerns the administrative aspect of that category, while the number of services has continued to increase.
What the students are here being presented is a simple, shameless, slight of hand producing for them new services without curing the old services, and, there in perpetuating a business model that only creates barriers to adequate service being provided to those students they have a responsibility and stated goal of providing food for.
That there is currently a economic recession on going is irrelevant to their ability to claim some form of abatement from the necessity to produce for students that which they said they would do. That they are unable to create for students food at cost because there is a market event currently on going is a sign of their poor preparation for this kind of event (poor preparation mirrored by the school’s endowment investments), that given its regularity (once every twenty or thirty years since modern markets) should be accounted for.
The editorial board has produced an editorial, essentially stating, that students have an obligation not to forget how good they have it. Let us not forget that tuition is $37,800 (67th highest for the 2008-2009 school year, and its only going to get higher from there.) per student per year, the college of arts and sciences has 3,700+ students alone, (forget scholarships for the present discussion, due to the fact that those monies are still being collected by the school and that only the source of the money is different), and that the students enrolled are the best students the school could wish for (let citizens not fear their government, let their government fear them, etc.).
If they are unable to provide for students given the allocation of the aforementioned tuition given to them for the provision of services by the university, then the school has a responsibility to its students to replace bon appetite with a company that can produce food at the given allowance without the gaps in services that the previously stated tuition should not allow for.
That the school requests so much of the students and their respective families economically, is in no way unacceptable to me, so long as those monies are used responsibly, however, this very issue shows the slight of hand tricks employed by various groups (also present in the architecturally designs of the buildings that have sprung up over the past handful of years) charged with providing for the students services that should be greatly expanded in some areas.
In drafting, the first rule given to the student is ‘form follows function’, the kind of ‘ooo’ and ‘aww ‘effect that dining services is producing is at the very heart of the problems facing the university as it attempts to move itself into the circle in which it belongs. I.e., within the top ten, if not the top five, were the resources (students, professors, facilities, opportunities, etc.) adequately and properly consumed and dispensed by the administrators currently in charge of the university.
The services offered at WUSTL by Bon Appetite are nowhere near unrivalled, they are not at all times, or for that matter, even mostly superb, and the administrators in charge of food services have shown themselves to be further entrenching flaws within their business models as they add on services rather than improving the service those services are attached to, when given the opportunity to eradicate and dispel them from their services provided to WUSTL students.
The editorial position of this newspaper is one that celebrates mediocrity, the kind that is as hollow and (as disappointing as it is to those of us truly concerned with the school, and its future), prevalent as the walls of the new dorms, and the kind that holds back rather than pushes forward positive change.
Respectfully Submitted,
Patrick S. Seaworth