| | After seeing a group on Facebook called "Petition to Improve Lipscomb Dining Services / Food Court," I decided that it was high-time some of the Lipscombites learned why things are the way they are. This is from my own experience in my four years at Lipscomb, culminating with a high honor my senior year.
As a former SGA President of Lipscomb, I can tell you
there is a lot that students do not know or realize about the Lipscomb
Dining Services (LDS). Every President and Presidential candidate has
mentioned improving the quality of LDS, but very few have been able to
actually do anything about it. I remember coming in to office,
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about all the changes I would make, and
food service was one of the first areas we tackled. A meeting with
Rick Graham, Ken Corwin, and Peter Fox soon showed us what it's really
like. It also showed us how approachable our staff really are at
Lipscomb, if you get over the hurdle of complaining without acting. I
can remember going through a plan to implement a Chick-Fil-A, and it
actually began carving itself out last year. There were issues with
quality that seemed to be resolved with a little communication, so I
decided to compile a list. This is a list of common grievances I
received, as well as the remedies and suggestions of the staff of LDS:
1. Price. Students everywhere complained about how much they
were paying for a meal (which, when I graduated, was right at $7.00 for
dinner). The vast conspiracy theory is that LDS hordes all this money
and rolls around in it all day while we eat miserably. In reality, it
is the opposite-- LDS keeps between $2 and $3 for every meal
purchased. If you didn't feel nickel-and-dimed enough already, get
this: the remaining $4-5 goes to the Lipscomb University general fund.
Out of the meager sum that LDS keeps, part of it goes to Sodexho as a
company, part to salaries and wages, and part to equipment and
maintenance of the facilities. These funds add up when a large student
population buys the meal plans, which is partly why so many students
have to remain as on-campus residents. Seniors are given an "out" by
getting to live off campus, though some choose to stay as dorm
dwellers, partaking in the feast (no pun intended). Students figure
that if they're paying that much for a meal plan, they should get their
money's worth, which brings up the topic of...
2.
Floating Meals. The dollar amount charged for a meal is not a random
price charged to gain the most profit for a dining services
organization. Here's how it works: Lipscomb takes the average number
of meals used per student, per semester. The average works out to
around 75%. So if little Johnny gets a meal plan of 150 meals, it is
expected that with eating out with friends, dining elsewhere, or eating
in his room, Johnny will consume approximately 113 of his 150 meals on
his plan. This number is estimated because some folks use their entire
plan while others barely use it at all. LDS then uses this number and
approximates the food cost per student per meal, multiplies that amount
times the number of students buying a meal plan, and submits it to the
university. The university tacks on their added "fees and expenses"
and sets the overall price for the meal plan. If every meal on a meal
plan were made a floater, more students would be likely to use all of
their meals, meaning LDS would actually lose money when it came time
for accounting. Converting all meals to floater meals would require an
addition of 25% to the cost of the meal plans, which would be even more
heavily revolted and profaned than the current system. Students
already have money problems, but maybe all they want is better...
3. Food selection. The menus are chosen for the upstairs
dining hall based on comments, suggestions, and a general plan set
forth by Michael Sullivan, the executive chef for LDS. If you don't
like what you see up there, let him know, and there stands a pretty
decent chance that the item will either be removed from the menu, or at
the very least, taken out of rotation as often. When I left, the menus
were on a 3-week rotation, so if you had spaghetti today, expect to see
it again in three weeks. This is altered every so often with popular
foods, which get rotated through lunch and dinner menus on a
less-than-3-week period. For instance, you may have fried cod for
lunch today and then again next Friday for dinner. Is there a type of
food that you would rather see offered? Let Michael know. He is
always open to suggestions from anyone who dines there. If you have a
recipe for something your mom makes, give him a copy and request it to
be on the menu-- you might see it for lunch the next day. More people
eat upstairs than downstairs. This could be because the quality of
food is better upstairs, or it could be caused by the...
4.
Food Court Follies. There is no denying that the level of service
upstairs is incomparable to that of the Food Court. The state of
employment of the hired help downstairs has a large part to do with the
student population. If management does not hear about a problem,
nothing will happen. Complaining to your friends that the perverted
old guy at the chicken place was checking you out will do nothing but
create unrest between you and your friends, as well as whomever else
you told. However, informing Ken, Rick, or David that the gross old
man was checking you out will often result in a new-hire being trained
as early as the next day, or the employee may be put on suspension or
heavily monitored after being moved to another position. I often heard
about employees that would tell me they were "out" of chicken when I
came at an off time (say, 30 minutes after peak dinner time). I
confronted Ken with this information and was told that it is often
caused by lazy employees that merely do not want to walk back to the
freezer to get out another bag of chicken. Ironically enough, there
was plenty of chicken the next night. Plenty of things can be
accomplished with good...
5. Communication. LDS strives to be a good place to eat, and
there are admittedly pitfalls in their handiwork. Think about it-- if
you are dining out at a restaurant, and your food is served cold,
undercooked, overcooked, or any other plethora of fallacies that can
befall a piece of food, you send it back and demand it be fixed because
you paid a healthy sum of money for said meal. However, with Lipscomb,
too many students assume the problem is non-fixable and that the staff
does not care about your well-being. The staff of Lipscomb Dining
Services is here to help you, make you comfortable, and to provide the
services for which you paid. If no one speaks up, the "problems" are
not seen as problems to those in charge. Speak your mind. Voice your
opinion. Let your thoughts be heard. Democracies are not run by
dictators, but rather they are formed from the voices of the common
people.
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| | Posted 4/24/2007 5:32 PM - 7 Views - 8 eProps - 3 comments
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