Long lines at dining halls. Fewer dining halls open. Long GrubHub waits. What is behind these issues in dining services this semester?
Dining staff have experienced dramatic changes in working conditions due to the COVID 19 pandemic.
Geraldine Dupre, Tyler dining hall staff, explained that dining hall workers are spread too thin, with limited staff needed to create too many food options. While staff are stretched thin, the resources—refrigerators, freezers and ovens—also remain an issue. Dining halls, as physical spaces, cannot expand and contract to accommodate the unpredictable number of diners.
Union Manager, Joe McNeish, added a historical perspective. McNeish told the Sophian, “In 1980, we had 250 staff. Approximately 36 were housekeepers. A starting cook earned 3.2 times minimum wage then. Currently, we have 125 staff. A starting cook now earns 1.5 times minimum wage and works less than 40 weeks per year.”
The staff accommodates the needs of a very diverse population, but this necessity has added to the stress. McNeish stated, “Confusing, onerous and changing policies on allergen labeling, along with food procurement problems, has made our jobs even more difficult and stressful.” Of course, allergy-awareness has changed dining services for the better since 1997. Nevertheless, the care put into student health comes with slower service.
Cutter-Ziskind dining hall worker, Adam Lueb, has been with dining services for six years. Lueb highlighted new organizational and environmental issues, stating, “It is more disorganized this semester than it was in previous semesters, and we’ve had to switch to a lot more to-go stuff, so there’s been a lot more garbage and a lot less usable compost because the students don’t know what is and isn’t compostable.”
Like Dupre, Lueb acknowledged longer and slower lines this year. Lueb attributed the change to a lack of staff to support expanded service hours. He explained, “They extended the dining hours but didn’t schedule more workers, so we have less time and fewer people to prepare food.”
Although distribution of meals has been difficult this year, Lueb said that students have been patient and supportive.
Chase-Duckett chef, Christopher Curtis, has been working in the dining halls at Smith for around 35 years. Curtis has a creative bent: he spends his summers woodworking and working as a private caterer. Curtis echoes the sentiment of additional pressures in this unusual year. While multitasking and making cheese quesadillas, Curtis told The Sophian, “We just closed a couple more dining buildings last year. So, when I started 35 years ago, back then we had 35 kitchens, and each kitchen was small and fit 75 on average, but most recently, with the COVID situation, trying to balance between the restrictions and dining room space is a challenge … I don’t know if Gillett closing was a COVID-related thing or just a general logistics thing. But that right there fit 250 people twice a day, lunch and dinner, and most of the spill came over here. And Chase-Duckett was originally designed to feed 200, and I’d say an average lunch is pushing over 400 now.”
Curtis also explained that dining halls like Lamont that are using GrubHub actually require more labor, even though they see fewer people: “they have the equivalent of 120 full-time hours of labor more than this building, but their numbers were about half.”
Even just the bagel wrapping in Chase-Duckett and the packaging of boxed salads requires more time and labor. Curtis stated, “It’s twice the work, and we didn’t get twice the bodies.” From Curtis’ perspective, Chase-Duckett’s transition away from grab and go and back to buffet style is now making dining run more smoothly.
Curtis believes that the dining halls are on the right track. Like Lueb, he appreciates that students have been patient as they wait in lines.
Other challenges this year can be attributed to insufficient student labor. Curtis pointed out, “We seem to have suffered in the labor market, just like the rest of the world, for student dishwashers. Right now, and always, our primary source for getting dishes washed has always been student workers. It’s been challenging because we have to do that also.”
McNeish suggested, “Students can hold upper management accountable for making these changes. The system of dining locations each specializing in a cuisine (like Northrop-Gillette) has worked well for years. The idea that we need more items in fewer locations so students with specific food needs can eat together is a fallacy and does not help in any way to feed students quickly. Our Union will continue working with students to help on these issues, and we really appreciate it.”
Dupre told The Sophian, “In the beginning, in 1997, we had more freedom. We had menus and recipes, but they were not as rigid as they are now. We had a lot more liberties, and it was a way to stay involved and practice your craft. For example, for tea, I would make a decorated cake every week—and not just flowers on a cake, but a cake that looked like a roasted turkey in a tin foil pan.”
Dupre’s innovation in the culinary arts is just one part of her creative ethos. Beyond her culinary work at Smith, Dupre sews tote bags and makes apron labels (her brand is bag lady by Dean and Gerry wear by Dean). Yet her creative thinking has been put to the test in a new way recently due to the complexities of the current dining system.
When Dupre began at Smith, students ate in the house in which they lived. Dupre recalled, “In 1997, it was easy: 80 students lived in Comstock and 80 students lived in Wilder.” As a result, the Comstock-Wilder Dining Hall staff could expect 160 students. The benefit of greater choice for students has come with tradeoffs: longer lines and unpredictable servings as supplies run low. Certainly, there is no time for Dupre’s once-famous decorated cakes. Instead, staff members are unable to ascertain even the number of people for any given meal, with students choosing to dine anywhere. A house that once catered steadily to 200 students may now, unexpectedly, be faced with 300 or more, depending on the popularity of a given meal. To compound the issue, staff are not always able to get an accurate count for future planning because students may not always swipe into the dining halls.
These staff are masters of their craft. While they see recent issues with dining services due to the pandemic, they remain committed to the ideal of serving students good food in a welcoming environment.
Dupre stateed, “Smith wants everyone to be fed: good, nutritional, safe food for all.”
How can students help? Suggestions from Dupre, Lueb, and Curtis include signing up for dining hall shifts, considering a position as a dishwasher, swiping into dining halls with your OneCard and going to a different dining hall if the line appears too long in one dining hall.
“…a lot more garbage and a lot less usable compost because the students don’t know what is and isn’t compostable.”
Okay, just saying… there are literally posters right there at the garbage bins that say “compost this” and “throw away that” – you’d think Smith students could read but it’s been an ongoing thing probably since before I got here last year. I was always amazed at how so many students were unable/unwilling to take the extra ten seconds to sort their post-meal stuff.