Students' response to servery issues overplayed

By Staff Editorial     10/21/10 7:00pm

There is a seemingly growing trend of discrepancies present in the food being served across different campus serveries (see story, page 1). While McMurtry College and Duncan College students are privileged with some of the best food and most options on campus at West Servery, other students are left with smaller kitchens that have less capacity to produce great food. To make matters worse, students at Will Rice College and Lovett College are burdened with catered food from West Servery as they await the completion of East Servery. This catered food inevitably offers a less fresh and less varied menu. The fact that all students pay the same amount of money - an ever-increasing number - for meal plans aggravates this harsh discrepancy of food quality even further. Students of Will Rice and Lovett took matters in their own hands

a few weeks ago when a large contingent of both colleges boycotted their catered food and instead opted for Baker Servery food. However, the recent outcries from Lovett and Will Rice seem to be overdramatic and frankly unnecessary. Starting next semester, both of these colleges will be privileged with food from the brand-new East Servery. This cafeteria will even offer unparalleled features such as a crepemaking station.

Another major concern was the quality of food at South Servery

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last year. Housing and Dining has taken steps to address this issue by moving Chef Derrix Norman from West Servery to South Servery. Furthermore, the newly opened Baker Servery, although smaller and less varied with its choices, offers exceptionally high quality food and a plethora of vegetarian options on a daily basis. Thus, it seems that the university is doing a great deal to "even the playing field" between all students' dining experiences.

Despite these attempts by the university, many students are unhappy with their food on campus, prompting them to frequent other serveries on campus. Ironically, this creates a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy - the less often students visit their own serveries, the less card swipes and less money their servery gets, and the harder it gets for the servery to achieve higher quality food.

While students' voicing of displeasure of food options is certainly an important impetus for change, perhaps the best strategy is to stay content and support one's home servery. The necessary changes to the dining system are being initiated; protesting and shunning certain serveries will ultimately hurt more than help. At the very least, the most vocal colleges about the issue - Lovett and Will Rice -should think of their Sid Richardson College peers who must wait even longer to enjoy the direct benefits of East Servery.

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