Drexel University Dining

James Kirwan and Joey Mannarino John Borczon English 102 2/28/13 Drexel Dining Not Meeting Basic inescapably As any college student knows, the quality of a develops dine hall is extremely important. To be successful as students, it is an absolute essential that a student is strong and healthy. one and only(a) of the keys to creation strong and healthy is a healthy and balanced diet, filled with a variety of foods. At Drexel, we argon being deprived of this necessity. While we do defy a eat hall that is open for most of our day, actually eating in that respect is an issue. For all freshmen at Drexel, a eat plan is required.There be three different traditional meal plans, ranging from a hefty $1,830 to $1,915. All three traditional plans revolve slightly the Handshumacher Dining Center. The custom meal plans also provide non-homogeneous options, but in the end, focus around the Handshumacher Dining Center as well. The meal plans are outrageously expensive however, conside ring the tuition most students are paying, this is not the issue. The issue is the quality of food in the dining hall. It is one proposition for students not to approve the food that they eat, but even more of a concern when the food they are eating is unsafe to be eaten.Just in the last few weeks, at least 10 people have been bed ridden for days due to, what they believe, to be food poisoning from the Handshumacher Dining Center. This is a major problem. Once a person has wedgeed a food-borne illness, participating in academics and/or extracurricular activities becomes nearly out(predicate), affecting students lives and grades severely. With students potentially in danger of becoming sick and being affected in their academics, this is more than just disliking the dining hall. The Handschumacher Dining Center is not clean by any means at all.After eating there a few times, occurrences such as finding a single black hair in our mashed potatoes and flakes of crude in our drinks be came a regular ordeal. When nerve-wracking to get soda from the soda machine there would be diverse particles coming from the machine itself. Once it comes out of the dirty machine, it will therefore go into one of the glass cups provided by the dining center. These are rarely cleaned properly and there always spots and other residue on them ( converge below). pic This is also a major problem with the utensils and even the plates.There is simply no excuse for this, as we are paying a safe amount of money for the dining hall. The whole dining hall surround is a disgrace. Upon entering the dining hall, you are lead down a flight of stairs into a dull hoary basement with next to no natural lighting. The area where the food is prepared for the students is not visible, and based on the food that is served, probably for good reason. Once our tray is filled with whatever sub-par food they have prepared for us, we are to go into a very poorly designed seating area. The eating environm ent is far from pleasant.Half the challenge is finding a table that is clean enough to eat at, as the tables are not regularly cleaned off when students leave them. One could argue that it is the students responsibility to keep the tables clean, but this is simply illogical. If there are people being paid to clean the tables, a student is not overtaking to go out of their way in making sure their area is cleaned. The lack of cleanliness of the dining center extends beyond the seating area. If what we see out in the seating area is bad, what goes on behind the scenes is even worse.In a December 2010 Pennsylvania Food Code inspection, there were mouse feces found in the kitchens and storage areas, fruit flies observed underneath a self-serve beverage station and lack of a dedicated sink for mop-water disposal, among other violations (Strauss). The Triangle, Drexels newspaper, has various accounts recorded about the Handschumacher Dining Center, one of which includes a student seeing a live mouse running around. In these conditions, it is just about impossible for any food prepared to possibly be sanitary.This January, The Triangle published another article that discusses students receiving food poisoning and even the norovirus from the Handschumacher Dining Terrace. Norovirus is a super contagious virus usually transmitted through undercooked food and occasionally direct contact with an infected person. The student who contracted the norovirus ended up being sent to the ER. In the Drexel Facebook group there are posts weekly that complain about food poisoning or stomach aches caused from this dining hall. One of those students is Maggie Heath-Bourne.She personally knows a good deal of people who have gotten sick from this dining center. She was unable to attend her Wednesday classes. Maggie also positive that the dining center caused her illness because she had been really rushed at the beginning of the week and only had time to go to the Hans on Monday and T uesday, and she got sick on Wednesday. Since the university basically requires its freshman to eat at this dining hall, something needs to be done. There is no reason students should be scared for their health by eating at their own dining hall.The issues above are absolutely unacceptable for our dining hall, but in actuality, these are issues faced by quite a few dining halls around the country. In examining the various dining halls that have had problems there seems to be one common thread- the food production company Sodexo. We asked friends of ours how satisfied they were with their dining halls. Those who were happy with their dining halls went to schools that did not have Sodexo. Most of these students dining halls were controlled by Aramark. In further research, it became apparent that Sodexo is the root of our problems at Drexel.The same types of problems that we had at Drexel were faced by students at Fordham University, who also contracts Sodexo. An take out of the inspe ction read The inspections unearthed evidence of mice, roaches and improper storage of food, shortcomings that placed Fordham eateries in the lowest grade bracket (Ram Online). This is concerning not only for Fordham students but for any school that allows Sodexo to control its dining environment. The case at Fordham got so out of hand that the dining hall was required to be shut down for a curt while. Once it was finally opened back up, the tudents decided to hold a protest. However, this protest got them absolutely nowhere. At Drexel, there has to be a solution that we eject execute to get a decent selection of food in our dining hall. At Fordham University, the method of a protest failed, as Sodexo still stayed as the schools main food supplier. Sodexo claims on its website that it has a get on of students that overview its dining services. This control board of students does not have a representative from Drexel University on it. If we had some input about our dining hall th rough this board, maybe there would be some action taken.Another solution we could execute is introducing a board of various students that oversees and works with the kitchen staff to make sure the meals are both well prepared and well varied. These students would need to be Drexel students who frequent the dining hall. By being on this board, they will receive no benefits towards their dining hall plans or anything of the sorts. It would be a totally transparent board also. This way, students would have an wall socket to go to to complain about the problems in this dining hall. The way it is set up now, it is extremely hard to get a meeting with anyone in the dining hall.For the purpose of this paper we attempted to set up a meeting with the director of residential living on campus. It took us about an entire calendar month to schedule a meeting with this man. For a campus environment that can be fair to all, the food staff needs to be much more accessible. It is risible that we have to wait so long for a meeting with someone who can make a change for us. This student board could supervise Sodexo until its contract with Drexel University is over. However, as soon as possible getting Sodexo out of Drexels dining hall would be ideal.This company has proven time and time once more throughout the country that it cannot maintain a dining environment. Sure, it can provide food, but not good or safe food. This student leadership board could take a look at other food companies that are doing a better job satisfying both students needs and also slump health inspections. Drexel has decent dining options outside of the dining hall. There is a second dining option, accessible only through our dining dollars which is kept evenhandedly clean. The food choices are from chains across the country. The election of food is not the best, but at least it is kept clean. This would probably not be the guidance for our dining hall to go in. Drexel has a faculty dining hall, run by Sodexo, which is treated in a different manner entirely then the Handschumacher Dining Center. Why should the students be getting second rate food when they are paying for a meal plan? Also, Drexel just received a large scale grant that is going to a renovation project for the area outside of the main building. With this money, Drexel could have begun production on a dining hall run by the 12th Street Caterers, also a Drexel company.With so many possible solutions why do we allow Drexel to continue to deplete us the same dirty and poorly made food? We have to find some sort of way to make sure that Drexel implements the students opinions into choosing a new plan and direction for its dining hall. To start, we must set up some sort of board for students to voice their opinions directly to Sodexo. From there, we must see what we can do to get Sodexo out, and using this same board of students, create a new solution that pleases all students and also follows health standards. No ma tter what we do, we cannot keep going in the manner that we are going.