Students won’t have to worry about any changes with dining halls when they come back from break.
“Students get into a routine and the last thing I want to do is disrupt that,” said Michael Paulus, director of Dining Services.
Dining Services tries to work on all changes during the summer.
This gives them all year to work on surveys and figure out what worked and didn’t work for students that year, Paulus said.
“Our main goal for spring semester is dedicated to figuring out how to keep the students over in Kreischer and Harshman happy with the food at the Sundial,” he said.
However, there will be changes at the beginning of next fall.
Because Dining Services determines traffic of students in the dining halls every 15 minutes, they plan according to that.
Right now, Dining Services is working with Capital Planning and Pinkberry to move Pinkberry’s location to the Sweet Shop in the Oaks dining hall, but will not fully be open until fall of next year.
“There is more traffic over by the Oaks, and because Dunkin’ Donuts is over there and is open year round, we can make Pinkberry open year round,” Paulus said.
The open loft area of the old location of Pinkberry will have an extended Outtakes in its place.
“We will either have caramel apples or a food cuisine outtake like the Nest,” he said.
Senior Ben Hofecker said he thinks moving Pinkberry’s location is a “good move.”
“It [will be] closer to my apartment, so now I’ll be able to go more,” Hofecker said.
While Hofecker is excited about this move, he was upset about Founders dining hall closing this past year.
“I miss chicken bowls,” he said.
Paulus said there are no plans to make that into any type of dining hall again. The honors college staff offices are now located in that area.
“It was open, so we took the spot and turned it into a place for honor students to lounge and study,” said Sarah Waters, director of residence life.
Classes will begin in Founder’s basement next semester, Waters said.
Senior Allison Hines, who is in the honors program, said she wishes it was available for her when she lived in Founders her sophomore year.
“I am still able to use it this year, but would have been nice to walk down stairs and ask my professors a question,” Hines said.
She said she thinks it is a great place for it because of the location.
“It’s around the middle of campus and you can live upstairs,” Hines said.
Even though she wishes it was available for her to use when she lived on campus, she was pleased having a dining hall right below her.
“I never needed to leave my [residence hall], and I think every student would agree how nice that can be,” she said. “If it’s cold outside or hot outside and you don’t want to go anywhere, you stick with what they offering that day for lunch or dinner.”
Regardless of Founder’s dining hall no longer existing, students still have places to dine.
“We are trying to move everything around [based off of traffic] in an easy way that doesn’t disrupt people and still makes them happy,” Paulus said.
