Residential Life surveys to find student views on dining

Department wants to educate students about limitations

Residential Life is planning to make changes in how student dining works at Oberlin, and they are looking for student input on what those changes should be.

A survey the Housing and Dining department distributed Wednesday asked students to rate the current food service on everything from food quality to locations of dining halls.

Sandra Hougland, manager of Housing and Dining, and Michelle Gross, assistant director of Housing and Dining, both stressed that students' opinions are important to the department and that students should take the survey seriously.

The inflexibility of the current 21-meal plan is one aspect that students have expressed frustration over.

The number of students attempting to get off board has increased dramatically over the last five years, Hougland said. These students often find it is harder to get off than they had thought.

The plan is rigid because both Marriot and the school budget expect $1,550 in revenue per student, according to Joshua Kaye, a student committee member. Any reform would have to balance the budget according to these needs.

Residential Life is attempting to both educate students about the current plan and its constraints and to get better information about what students' priorities are.

They have also distributed a fact sheet which explains, among other things, the rationale for the structure of the current meal plan. This fact sheet explains that the real costs of dining are primarily for maintaining the wide variety of dining locations and to College revenue in general, not necessarily for food. The wealth of dining possiblities, especially the number of Co-op options, is unusual for a college campus, according to the fact sheet.

Marriot Corporation, which has a contract with the College to provide food service through next year, has devised their own standardized survey which will ask more specific questions about the quality of food, menu choice and other areas, which Residential Life will distribute to students in about two weeks.

Between the Marriot and Residential Life surveys, the department hopes to better tailor other aspects of student dining to students' needs, Gross said. Residential Life has composed the survey with the reccomendations of Student Senate, Resident Coordinaters and the Housing and Dining Commitee.

Students on the committee feel confident that Residential Life is genuinely interested in students' concerns, student commitee member Chuckie Kamm said.

The surveys will be handed out and collected at tables in the mailroom and dining halls in an effort to keep them from being thrown out immediately, as many campus mailings are. They are also available directly from the Residential Life offices in Peters.

A two-dollar Snack Bar voucher is being offered as further incentive for students to return completed surveys.