USUAA members discuss lackluster campus dining options

As the Kaladi Brother’s café near the Consortium Library closed up for the day on Wednesday March 5, many students remained on campus – doing homework, chatting with friends, and making use of university facilities. The café closes on weekdays at three in the afternoon and is not open Friday through Sunday.

This is the backdrop against which TNL conducted a discussion about campus food with outgoing USUAA President Katie Scoggin, President-elect Shanone Tejada, and Vice President-elect Helena Ballard. Speaking with these student government members revealed that food on campus is a topic that comes up often in USUAA meetings.

“I think that in the meetings that Katie and I have been in … there hasn’t been a time where we didn’t bring up the food, so it’s been a persistent conversation throughout the year,” said Tejada. While food-related decisions are left up to campus administrators, Tejada said that “we can certainly advocate for more food options – which is what we’ve been doing consistently.”

“It is a conversation that we’re actively having with administrators … We don’t have incentives to stay on campus because nothing’s open and there’s not a lot of dining options,” said Scoggin.

Scoggin said that there are no official plans “that we’ve [USUAA] heard of” to bring more food options to the campus.

“They might be in the works, but there’s nothing announced or … described to us,” said Tejada.

One move in the right direction, discussed by Scoggin, was the introduction of night hours at the residential dining hall earlier this semester. “Everything that I’ve been hearing about late night has been wonderful,” she said, “Students really love having that later option – especially with evening classes … It’s actually very fitting for the college lifestyle.”

Regarding food quality at the dining hall, Scoggin said “I think the quality of the food, I’ve heard, and honestly from what I’ve experienced, [is] getting better … I can tell that there’s more effort and care being put in.” She explained that action stations, where students can get food cooked to order, have also improved the dining hall experience. 

“They’ve had pho or Mongolian barbecue … those are fun, they keep it exciting and something to look forward to,”said Scoggin.

Tejada mentioned that students can fill out forms rating their experiences in the dining hall to provide feedback to administrators. However, he said that USUAA does not know where the forms are going. “That’s … something that we’ve kind of struggled to get an answer to. Where [are] the student feedback [forms]? Are they falling on deaf ears?”

“Not to say that they’re trying to ignore the issue. But I think because it’s just a matter of … contractual agreements with NANA Management, and they have a lot of control over what kind of foods they put out. I think that’s where things get kind of complicated,” said Scoggin.

Tejada explained that there might be a need to look at what other universities are doing to see if UAA can learn from them in an effort to bring better and cheaper options to students. “Why are their [other universities] food options more? Why is it cheaper, even if they have three terms? … Why can’t we do that here?” said Tejada.

Scoggin said that USUAA relies on “students and their feedback because a lot of the … anecdotes that we use are from students.”

“Go to your USUAA leaders … let them know what you’re experiencing and that’s just like a catalyst for us to advocate for you, dining related or not,” said Scoggin closing out the interview.

As the group of USUAA members walked away from the closed Kaladi’s café, student Hunter Fleischhacker approached them. He admitted to having listened in on the conversation and was curious about dining hall food waste. He suggested that the university should investigate options for donating leftover food – an idea that Scoggin said has been previously discussed by USUAA and will likely be discussed again in the future.

The exchange with Fleischhacker illustrates the importance of student voices. Students can find USUAA members’ contact information on the university website’s USUAA page.