As Smith College welcomes back all its students to campus over a year into the pandemic, hiccups are inevitable. But what the dining program is facing is not a hiccup.
When the college sent out a summer update about what Dining Services would look like in the coming fall semester, they boasted more options, sustainability efforts, the new Compass Cafe, and food available 15 hours out of the day— all impressive efforts. But what stood out the most was the number of dining halls open: nine dining halls and two cafes, compared to twelve dining halls in the past.
As the Residence Life department stated in an email to students, the college has a “larger than normal enrollment,” resulting in more students using dining halls than in years prior.
After two weeks with students on campus, the cracks in this shoddy system are widening. Weekday lunchtime rushes to Chase-Duckett result in lines of students spilling out of the dining hall and wrapping onto the Elm Street sidewalk.
The biggest issues arise when students are concentrated in certain areas of campus — like the lunchtime period from the 12:05 p.m. to 1:20 p.m. in center campus. Dining hall staff, by no fault of their own, cannot keep up with how many people are passing through. When dining staff is able to keep up a steady stream of food, the sheer number of students trying to get food at one time negates all their preparation.
To add to the problem, dining hall capacity is capped at 50% due to Covid-19 restrictions, leaving students who wish to dine inside the dining halls unable to find a seat. In September, with warm days, sitting outside is pleasant, and even preferable. When the season turns and the New England winter begins, sitting outside will be an unreasonable demand for students.
With the long dining lines, for some students grabbing food between classes can take too much time to feel worth it.
Smith College could have predicted this issue. Using Grubhub during the 2021 Spring semester students could see how long their food would take. Even then, with no self-service, six dining halls and one cafe open, and significantly fewer students on campus, wait times during popular mealtimes often extended over 45 minutes. Now, with the campus cafe and compass cafe open for meal swipes, the Grubhub wait time can be over an hour.
It is both disappointing and frustrating to see that while Smith College made changes to Dining Services, it seems they neglected to think of staff and students alike. Whether it means opening up more dining halls or restructuring mealtimes, Smith College needs to make a change before people go hungry and dining staff get burned out.
[Image: students dining at Cutter/Ziskind. Photo by Smith College.]
