Oliver Dennis

2/12/13

Research Report 1

  1. Introduction
  1. For my project this semester I will be focusing on an issue that occurs on the St. Lawrence University campus. This issue pertains to the dining services and how they are always over crowded with students who do not have enough time to wait and get their food. The time between classes is very limited and students need to have the time to enjoy a good meal so they can have the energy to excel in the classroom. We need to tackle this issue and propose a solution so students do not have to wait in strenuous long lines and hope that they find an empty table before they have to get to class. The sporadic hours of class time and the hours of the dining services have caused for students to be jammed packed in the dining areas at times throughout the day. We need to open up some of the other places more frequently or build another dining hall so students can enjoy a meal and get to class on time.
  1. Dining Service at St. Lawrence
  1. There are currently five places to eat on the St. Lawrence University Campus. These places consist of the NorthStar Café, the Dana Dining Center, the Time-Out Café, Pub 56 and The Grab and Go Lunch at Johnson Hall of Science.
  2. One of the popular places that everyone eats at is the NorthStar Café, which is located in the Sullivan Student Center.
  1. The NorthStar Café is open Monday through Friday from 7:45 am through 11:30 pm and on Saturday from 8:45 am to 11:30 pm. On Sunday, they are open from 2:00 pm to 11:30pm (SLU Dining Service).
  1. A second place for students to eat on campus is the Dana Dining Center.
  1. Dana is open Monday through Friday 7:30-10:00 am and Saturday and Sunday from 8:00 to 9:30 am for breakfast. Lunch hours consist of 11:00 am to 2:00 pm Monday through Friday and then on Saturday and Sunday, they are open from 10:30 am to 2:00 pm. For dinner, Dana is open everyday from 5:00 to 8:00pm (SLU Dining Service).
  1. The third place that you can eat on the St. Lawrence University campus is the Time-Out Café.
  1. The Time-Out Café is open Monday through Friday’s from 10:00 am to 2:00pm (SLU Dining Service).
  1. The fourth place that Students can eat at is Pub 56, which is located between the Huelett and Jenks Suites.
  1. Pub 56 is open on Monday’s from 7:30 pm until midnight, closed Tuesday and Wednesday, open from 5:00pm to midnight on Thursday, 5:00pm to 1:30am Friday and Saturday and then closed on Sunday (SLU Dining Service).
  1. The final place that students can eat at on campus is the Grab and Go Lunch at the Johnson Hall of Science building.
  1. The Grab and Go Lunch at Johnson Hall of Science is open Monday through Friday from 11:00 am to 2:00pm and the Time-Out Café is open Monday through Friday’s from 10:00 am to 2:00pm (SLU Dining Service).
  1. Dining Service at Union College
  1. We know what the dining situation is at St. Lawrence, but now lets take a look and see what the dining service is like at Union College. Union College has three areas on their campus that you can eat at, which consists up the Upper Class Dining Hall, the West Dining Hall and the Ozone Café.
  1. The first dining hall is the Upper Class Dining Hall that provides a variety of fresh food. This dining hall is open Monday through Friday from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm (Union College Dining Service).
  2. The second dining hall is the West Dining Hall that is known as the freshman-dining hall. This dining hall is open from Monday through Thursday from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm, Friday from 7:00 am to 2:00 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm and from 4:30 pm to 8:00 pm (Union College Dining Service).
  3. The third area to eat on campus is the Ozone Café. This is a local and organic café that is held in their Chapel. This café is open most Fridays of the term between the hours of 12:00 pm and 1:30 pm (Union College Dining Service).
  1. Furthermore, I spoke with my friend who currently attends Union College.

1. My friend said that Union is really like St. Lawrence when comparing the dining services. He said that it gets very busy and crowded during the lunch and dinner hours and they are planning on doing construction in the near future to make things better.

  1. The Community and Context
  1. There are many people who are affected by the dining services issue on the St. Lawrence University campus.
  1. The community is the people who are eating at the dining areas at St. Lawrence and who are constantly affected by the problems that constantly come up.
  1. There are multiple members of the community that are affected by this problem.
  1. The main people who are affected are the SLU students who rely on the five different dining areas to provide food everyday and to also be efficient in doing so.
  2. Another group of people who are affected are the faculty who do eat at one of the places from time to time. They have to deal with the same issues that the students deal with when they do choose to eat on campus.
  3. The last members of the community that are affected are the people who live in the town of Canton. Some of these people come to places like Dana, the NorthStar Café or the Time-Out Café because it may be more convenient for them or more affordable than other places in the town.
  1. The Cultural Values, Norms, and Conflicts in the community that shape people’s perspective on the issue
  1. The cultural values, norms and conflicts in the community are very diverse. You have blue-collar families that are hard working and who have strong family values, while others may just be the complete opposite. There will be people who care a lot about this issue and want to see it get fixed while some people really could care less.
  1. The Issue
  1. The issue at hand has to deal with the overcrowding in the dining areas on the St. Lawrence University campus and not being able to find a seat or get your food quick enough.

1.The time between classes is very limited and students need to have the time to enjoy a good meal so they can have the energy to excel in the classroom.

  1. This issue also has an affect on the local community.

1.This affects the local community because students, faculty members and even people who live locally have to wait in strenuous long lines and hope that they find an empty table before they have to get to class. We need to tackle this issue so those things do not happen on a daily basis.

  1. Causes of the Issue/Contributing Factors
  1. There are many causes and contributing factors that make this a big issue.
  1. One of the big issues is that St. Lawrence is overcrowded with students. They are letting more and more students in each year and they do not have the space for everyone.
  2. There is also too much ordering that goes on, which can especially be seen at the NorthStar Café. Students put orders in and if they do not get them right away, they put another order in and forget about their first one. This backs everything up and causes for delays.
  3. The limited amount of seating at the dining areas does not help anything either. The overcrowding and the limited number of seats has caused for students to not be able to sit down and enjoy the meal they just paid for.
  1. The main reason why the dining areas have to deal with this issue on a daily basis is because of the class schedules.
  1. Everyone gets food at the same time, especially during the lunch and diner hours. Students get out of class and head straight to get food so they can hopefully have time to eat before their next class.
  1. There are a few factors that continue to make the dining services issue a concern for everyone.
  1. The places that we eat at are not big enough for all of the St. Lawrence students to eat at, especially when most of the campus decides to eat at the same time.
  2. Also, the number of seats does not correlate to the number of students that we have, which has caused for students to not be able to find a table to eat at.
  1. Harms
  1. There is some harm that occurs from this issue.
  1. First of all, since it can be difficult to get food, students may decide to just skip out on lunch because they do not want to deal with the stress of getting food at one of the five places on campus.
  2. Furthermore, if students do not get the food they need, they will not have the energy to focus in class and excel in every way that they can.
  3. Finally, if the students have to constantly wait in long lines and have their orders messed up then they may consistently show up late to class and disrupt the learning that is going on.
  1. There are quite a bit of people who are influenced by the dining services issue.
  1. I can definitely say that all of the St. Lawrence students are the ones involved directly with this issue as well as the faculty. They are the ones who need food to fuel their minds and are constantly eating to keep their energy up.
  1. The main people who are negatively affected by this issue are the students and the faculty on campus.
  1. The students and faculty have to deal with this everyday and it can negatively affect how they are performing in school.
  1. Advantages and benefits of Addressing this Issue
  1. There are many advantages that can be seen by just addressing this occurring issue.
  1. By addressing the issue, the community would be able to enjoy a meal from any of the dining areas and not have to be stressed out waiting in lines or waiting for their orders for an ungodly amount of time.
  2. You would also relieve a lot of commotion that occurs constantly on a daily basis on campus and even have nicer and more up to date facilities.
  3. Students would make it to their classes on time, fully energized and ready to challenge their minds.
  1. The community will definitely benefit by making changes to the dining services issue.

1. The community would be able to get their food quickly and then have more time to do things that they need to that may be important. They will not have to wait in such long lines, wait extremely long for their food and would always have a place to eat their food.

  1. Urgency
  1. This is a big issue and it does need to be addressed now. If it is not addressed now and SLU follows on the path of letting more people in each year then it would be even more difficult for people to eat.
  1. There is simply not enough room right now for all of the students to eat at the same time during the day.
  1. There are bad things that can happen if this problem is not addressed now.

1. People’s health is very important and if this issue causes students to not eat, then they may not have the energy they need to excel in the classroom. This is a pressing issue that is not going to get better anytime soon if no one steps in and makes a change.

  1. Barriers
  1. There are a few barriers that make it difficult to resolve the dining services issue on campus.
  1. The first issue is that there needs to be a lot of planning before anything can happen. The school has to hire people to come in and draw up plans for how they are going to go about it, which can take some time (David Geleta).
  2. The second barrier that makes it difficult to solve this problem is that we have to deal with the health department when making changes to our dining services. There are a lot of food and health codes that need to be followed and can be a tedious process (David Geleta).
  3. Another barrier is whether there is enough funding for this to happen. St. Lawrence may not have the money or resources to make a drastic change to the amount of dining places that we currently have on campus (David Geleta).
  4. The last issue is that this project is not a priority at St. Lawrence. The resident hall issue is looked at as a bigger priority right now and everyone’s focus and energy is with that because we are running out of places for students to live (David Geleta).
  1. I would not say that there would be people here that resist the changing of how we run the dining services, but I do think that people may not see this issue as the most important issue at the moment, but will eventually get around to dealing with it.
  1. Significance
  1. There can be some harm that comes up because of this issue on campus.

1. The harm can be pretty significant because if this issue is not dealt with in a timely manner than it is going to get worse. St. Lawrence is accepting more and more students each year so if nothing gets done in the near future, people may not have room to eat on this campus.

  1. The harms from this issue can in fact be very pervasive
  1. The harms can be pretty pervasive in the sense that they are dealt with on a day-to-day basis and cause for people to become upset.
  1. The dining services issue has caused some short-term consequences and can easily lead to long-term problems because of this issue.
  1. For the short-term consequences, students will be upset and may resort to getting more food off campus. Long term, it may affect if a student wants to come to the school or not if they know that the dining service is not good at all.
  1. Research
  1. Dayle Burgess (Assistant to the President)
  1. I sent an email to Mr. Burgess and asked if I would be able to speak with him about this issue or if there was a better person that I could talk to what is going on with dining services.
  2. It has been a couple days and I did not get a response from him.
  1. Talked with David Geleta at the NorthStar Café (Associate Director of Dining and Conference Services)
  1. He recognizes that there is an issue and the dining services are trying to deal with it.
  2. Dining services is meeting with THELMO to try and come up with the best solution to deal with this issue.
  3. Short Term- David said that they just put in a new Grab and Go at the Johnson Hall of Science, which would hopefully attract students so the other dining areas are not as crowded.
  4. Long Term- David said that he was not sure…. He said ideas are being thrown around about possibly configuring Dana and the pub differently. Possibly Dana would be made bigger so there would be more space for students to sit and eat while also configuring the seating area in the student center to allow for more tables to be put in.
  5. The resident’s halls are the number one priority right now and dining is something that is looking to be taken care of 2 to 3 years down the road. He said there might be some kind of Grab and Go in one of the new Residents Halls.
  6. David recommended that I speak with Cindy Atkins (Director of Dining and Conference Services). She would know more about the planning and what is going on with this issue.
  1. I have emailed Cindy Atkins about meeting with her and am currently waiting for a response.
  2. I conducted two interviews of students and asked what they thought about the dining services on the St. Lawrence campus.

1. Interview with Brian Wilber

Q: Do you think that the dining services on campus can be better?

A: Yes, I think that there are a lot of problems currently and they need to fix them because it is annoying.

Q: What kinds of problems do you deal with?

A: Well, the lines especially at the pub are extremely long during lunch hours and it takes forever for me to get my food. There are also times where I may not be able to find a seat so I will have to sit on the ground when I eat.

Q: What do you think needs to be done to fix this issue?

A: I think the school needs to either build another dining hall or open up perhaps pub 56 and the time out café for more hours so students could possible go there to get food during the busy hours of the day

  1. Interview with Pierson Fowler

Q: Do you think that the dining services on campus can be better?

A: Absolutely, I always run into some kind of problem whenever I am trying to get food.

Q: Where do you normally go to get food on campus?

A: I mostly go to the pub, but end up going to Dana for dinner probably twice a week. I haven’t been to the time out café yet this year.

Q: Did you know that there is a grab and go place to get food in the Johnson Hall of Science?

A: No, not at all. When did they start that?

Q: Have you ever been to the Grab and Go in Johnson Hall of Science?