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As college students, and even as people in general, one of the most essential necessities in our everyday lives is food. Being on such demanding schedules with classes, homework, studying, and many other additional activities, it’s necessary for us to have convenient access to food at times that we can fit into our individual daily schedules. It’s also important that we are ensured enough healthy options.
Because of the need for well-operating dining halls on college campuses, we decided to base our presentation on how we can improve multiple aspects of the dining halls here at SUNY Oneonta. After listening to our presentation, you will be aware of the issues with the dining hall system, opinions and feedback from students and dining hall supervisors themselves, as well as how we can go about solving these issues.
After talking with our peers about the dining halls and asking them what complains they have and/or improvements they would like to see, we've come up with a list of the main things the SUNY Oneonta dining halls could work on in general:
- open for more hours
- more staff during busy hours
- clean the dishes and silverware more thoroughly
- more healthy choices
- more variety in general (not mostly the same choices every day)
- better pizza
- fresher food in general
- keep certain foods warmer (such as the pasta and pizza)
- better storage of food (should be covered when not in use)
Question: How do you respond to suggestions?
Answer: "We provide different selections of food to try to satisfy a range of tastes."
Question: Would you be willing to make changes based on suggestions?
Answer: "Yes"
Question: How do you feel about the dining hall (enough workers, the amount of open hours, etc)?
Answer: "We have enough workers and we're already open later on the weekends so i feel we have good hours."
Question: What improvements would you make?
Answer: "The dish room could be changed as well as the process of moving the storage boxes. It is difficult to maneuver them from downstairs."
Question: How do you respond to suggestions?
Answer: "We usually try to accommodate them within reason. It really depends on what the suggestion is."
Question: Would you be willing to make changes based on suggestions?
Answer: "Of course, I definitely would, it just depends what the suggestions are!"
Question: How do you feel about the dining hall (enough workers, the amount of open hours, etc)?
Answer: "I think we have enough workers but I know students like to eat late so once in a while it would be nice to stay open later."
Question: What improvements would you make?
Answer: "More healthy choices cooked and given out because we have them in stock"
We surveyed students around campus and asked the following questions. Students were asked to answer each question with a number on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the best).
1) How satisfied are you with the hours of operation of the dining halls? Mostly twos and threes.
2) Do you feel there is enough variety in the food choices? Mostly twos.
3) Is there enough healthy food provided? Mostly twos.
4) Do you feel the food is fresh enough? Mostly twos.
5) How is the service of the workers? Mostly fours.
6) Are there enough workers? Mostly twos
7) Do you feel the dining halls are clean enough? Mostly threes.
8) Is the food to "out in the open"? Mostly twos.
9) Do you feel suggestions are heard? Mostly twos and threes.
The results of the questions asked to students are overall more negative toward the quality of the dining halls than the responses of the actual dining hall workers.
Question: How do you respond to suggestions?
Answer: "We try to make changes according to suggestions that we get a bunch of. We want everyone to be happy!"
Question: Would you be willing to make changes based on suggestions?
Answer: "Yes, for sure!"
Question: How do you feel about the dining hall (enough workers, the amount of open hours, etc)?
Answer: "I feel like we have enough workers but perhaps we could stay open later on weekends."
Question: What improvements would you make?
Answer: "I would probably offer more of a variety of food choices."
Question: How do you respond to suggestions?
Answer: "We provide different selections of food to try to satisfy a range of tastes."
Question: Would you be willing to make changes based on suggestions?
Answer: "Yes"
Question: How do you feel about the dining hall (enough workers, the amount of open hours, etc)?
Answer: "We have enough workers and we're already open later on the weekends so i feel we have good hours."
Question: What improvements would you make?
Answer: "The dish room could be changed as well as the process of moving the storage boxes. It is difficult to maneuver them from downstairs
When gathering our information about what improvements could be made to the dining halls, we interviewed students as well as the dining hall supervisors. We stopped at each dining hall on campus in order to go right to the sources and make sure we covered all of them.
BY: Caralaina Pistone, Kretel Krah, Tom Maffucci, Marty Annunziata, and Erica Dalton
Although in the survey questions the results showed that overall students saw more things that needed improving than the actual workers and supervisors of the dining halls did, when actually hearing the students explain their answers, it became clear that in fact the students were positive about particular dining halls that fit their personal needs, while more negative about the other ones that they liked less. because of this, the survey results were skewed to fairly negative because they were directed toward all dining halls together
The answers to the questions asked focused on the positive aspects of the dining halls. Even though the dining halls can use a little change here and there, we discovered that students, especially freshmen are more concerned with how the food accommodates them as a person. As you can see by their answers, most people wanted to see improvements on the options of the food served. We found specifically, they wanted to see foods that were similar to dishes cooked back at home. It is possible to say that diversity among people on campus isn’t the only issue, but diversity seen in the food choices is something that we should also take into consideration.
From the data we have gathered, we've put together solutions that could help improve the SUNY Oneonta dining halls overall in ways that would satisfy the majority of the student populations' complaints.
- Food not in use or sitting out for a while should have covers.
- There should be more healthy choices in each dining hall.
- Student suggestions should be taken more seriously and followed up on more.
- There should be more variety in the food served in general.
To have the dining halls act on these solutions, it is important that students make their voices heard on campus rather than keeping things to themselves or only complaining to friends with mutual complaints. Students should assert themselves on campus through not only the suggestion boxes and text services the dining hall provides, but also through the campus newspaper, TV station, and other forms of bulletins around campus.
Favorite dining hall and why?
Natasha, freshman: Wilsbach, because I love the breakfast and toasted sandwiches. And I like when they have ice cream sundaes.
Danielle, freshman: Mills because it has the best quality and variety
Nikita, freshman: Mills because it has MyKitchen and students can cook for themselves
Charlene, freshman:Hulbert has the best fries and soft served ice cream.
Elliot, freshman: Wilsbach has more food variety
Continued:
Any improvements to the dining halls?
Natasha A: Hulbert should have more options because most of the time the sandwich station is closed and they run out of food quickly. Other than that, everything’s fine with me.
Charlene: More variety of food and more food provided in MyKitchen
Dan: Better quality food served in the dining halls.
Elliot: More cultural food served in the halls.
Monica: The halls should serve more cultural dishes and greens other than salads.
Alex: More vegetarian dishes.
In conclusion, we hope to have fully informed you all with the findings we have come up with on how students view campus food as well as how the dining halls could be improved. The surveys handed out concluded that out of 50 students, 39 students voted the food as average or a little below average, which was the 2 and 3 out of a 5 on our scale. This shows it is not too bad, yet it could be improved. The need for more variety, fresher, and healthy food was evident in our findings with the majority of students rating these low on the scale. The actual service of the dining halls was good, but sometimes needed more workers. However, all the workers and staff were always ready to go and take in student opinions, which is important to the student community. We hope to have made some progress and findings about how we can improve the dining halls at SUNY Oneonta, and hopefully these plans can be implemented in the future if students continue to make suggestions and take action.