Director of Dining Services, Richard Roland, spoke with the Undergraduate Student Senate about changes that are coming to the dining halls.
Roland emphasized that the role of dining services is to “understand what the needs of the students, faculty and staff are” and start working through some of the challenges facing the dining hall.
Dining services is looking to bring more authentic food to the dining halls, giving the students more cultural options.
“We’re looking at taking [away] the milk and creating a station there that brings some authentic or international cultural flair,” Roland said. “My biggest take away is making sure it’s authentic.”
The Oaks and Carillon will also be getting remodeled and Kreisher is looking to be shut down in the coming years.
“Kreisher might be closing down. They talk every year on whether it’s going to survive another year or not,” Roland said.
Along with renovations of the dining halls, Roland is looking to fix the lunch rush issues in the Nest and Bowen-Thompson Student Union.
“We’re inviting a lot of leaders and folks on campus as we start developing this master plan for dining,” Roland said. “We are gonna be doing a lot of surveys, a lot of sit downs and focus groups, and we’re gonna try to figure out what is the right direction,”
He also pointed out that, “it is going to be dependent on you [the students] and the feedback we get.”
After being delayed by challenges with furniture arrival and staffing problems surrounding COVID-19, dining is opening Pub 1910 during the first week of March then opening full time once spring break has passed.
“It is going to open at the end of this month. Certainly the first week of March and then fully when we get back from spring break,” Roland said. “We’ll be open for dinner atleast and, hopefully, longer as we near the end of the year.”
The Pub is going to have a compost element to it in hopes to embrace an ecofriendly approach to dining.
Roland ended his discussion with USG by mentioning that “it has been a much better semester and I hope to continue to grow our staff and program.”
USG’s Chief Administrator, Rachel Larsen, promoted the information sessions happening this month for anyone wanting to run for a position within USG.
These information sessions will be held Tuesday, Feb. 15 at 5:00 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 16 at 7:00 p.m., Monday, Feb. 21 at 6:45 p.m., and Thursday, Feb. 24 at 6:45 p.m. All of which will be held via zoom.
