The first round of SGA’s dining hall survey concluded last week with mostly positive reviews of CulinArt’s dining services.
The survey collected 172 responses from students around campus, with the ultimate goal of convincing the university’s Board of Trustees that improvements to dining services could potentially be profitable, according to Vice President Madigan Balfe.
“If I give them these numbers, my theory is: why would they say no?” Balfe said.
This survey — and the next one, which SGA will finish collecting responses for by the end of the semester — is aimed at getting both Boost mobile-order food and Bison Bites and Brew (B3) available to be served on weekends.
Keith Paylo, dean of student life, and other university officials declined to comment on the survey until it is completed at the end of the semester for their review.
“We’re basically trying to prove that it is economically feasible to open up these places on the weekends,” Balfe said.
And, according to results averaged by Balfe and Riley Mahon, SGA’s president pro-tempore, that might just be true.
Respondents rated their likelihood to eat at both Boost and B3 at roughly 8 out of 10 on average, with 10 meaning “every weekend.”
The survey also polled respondents’ thoughts on the cleanliness of the university’s dining facilities, which, to both Balfe and Mahon’s surprise, they rated almost 9 out of 10 on average.
“For context,” Mahon said, “‘10’ was ‘I would lick the floor.’”
And the quality of the food on campus, Balfe said, didn’t seem to be a concern either. Actually, respondents seemed to indicate that variety was a bigger priority for change, she said.
Survey takers rated dining services’ variety of options at 7 out of 10 on average, and food quality at 6.6 out of 10 on average.
“They’re admitting that there’s a bunch of variety,” Balfe said. “But they’re saying that it needs to be changed. So something just needs to be changed about what the variety is, but that doesn’t mean that quality isn’t still a problem.”
One key issue with the university’s food, mold, was not featured in any of the questions on the survey. Students often report to The Globe, through various channels, that they have been served mold by CulinArt’s facilities. Some respondents still noted having been served either moldy or cold food in the open-ended section of the survey.
Mahon, the president-elect of SGA, said he is considering opening a “hotline” for students to report that they have been served moldy food next semester.
Another question asked if students’ dietary restrictions were met by the university’s dining facilities, but Mahon and Balfe both said the results were inaccurate and scrubbed the question.
“Right now we are mostly focused on CulinArt on weekends,” Balfe said. “And so dietary restrictions don’t necessarily fit that bill exactly.”
The second, ongoing round of the survey is meant to see where students “already are” with regard to dining, Balfe said. It asks where and when students eat on weekends, and if their needs have ever not been met by the university’s current options.
One question asks if students have ever been forced to skip eating at the university’s dining hall because of school activities, like rehearsals.
Balfe said she noticed that some dance students were unable to eat in the morning prior to their 8 a.m. ballet class because the dining hall does not open early enough. She also said other COPA students said they were unable to get out of rehearsal in time to catch the dining hall before it closed for the day.
“I just think it’s ridiculous that we’re an arts school, and we focus so much on the arts, and then we purposefully don’t give them any time to go to the dining hall.”
Other questions ask if students have moved off-campus or skipped meals because of the dining hall; both also things Balfe said people have said to her are issues.
Senators from SGA will continue to collect responses to the second survey until the end of the semester on May 8. Mahon said his goal is to have 200 responses, representative of about 10% of the student body.
