This week, on September 23, the KSC Student Assembly held its second meeting of the semester, with guest speakers Patrick Friley, Austin O’Hara, Kala Clark and Bobbie Walker from KSC Dining.
The group had about 15 minutes to provide insight about the changes that have happened since last semester, as well as another 10 minutes to answer questions from the assembly.
Friley, the director of dining services, has been at Keene for a little over a year. He explained that the dining team shifted its attention to student feedback through various surveys and focus groups and have made several changes based on those suggestions.
Changes included the return of the stir-fry station, the addition of smoothies to Zorn Dining Commons (DC) and Lloyd’s Marketplace, as well as more grab-and-go options, such as a variety of new sandwiches. Around 75 percent of menu requisitions have been added to the DC’s usual four-week menu cycle.
Hour adjustments have been a major change as well. Beginning this year, on weekdays, the DC is open from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. On weekends, it is open from 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Starbucks now opens at 10 a.m. on weekends, while the Smoothie Lab has an earlier opening of 9 a.m., as a Boost exclusive.
As for allergen concerns: The Avoiding Gluten station was moved to be in one station, with frequent attendance by staff, and both ingredients and allergens are listed on the DineOnCampus platform. In addition, all foods in the DC have been labeled with call tags at every station. Text-to-Chat is also an option for students to communicate with ingredient experts regarding the food.
Clark, dining services’ marketing director, said there has been a 256% increase in views and engagement on the dining Instagram page. Of this, 70% of the engagement is organic, meaning that people are liking, sharing and commenting on posts, letting the marketing team know that more students are getting the information they need. The marketing team welcomed two interns this year, both seniors, and began posting daily stories showcasing dining menus.
O’Hara, executive chef, shared his excitement about the upgraded pizza oven that will be taking the current one’s place in the coming months. O’Hara said the oven will allow those working on it to pull out more pizzas in a shorter time frame, which will assist with the increase in traffic and offer more variety.
“We’re actually the first university in the entire country to be getting this. It’s a brand new conveyer style oven, with stones on the conveyer so you get the ‘stone fire pizza’ look,” he said.
Off-campus District Representative and senior Joshua O’Neill asked the guest speakers where the decision to close Lloyd’s earlier came from.
Friley responded, “It costs a lot of money to keep things open. We have to shift hours and the dollars attached to those hours to what was most being used. So we looked at the traffic patterns, and figured we can take from here [Lloyd’s] and bring it over here [Zorn Dining Commons] to increase that location’s hours.”
Friley continued, “The advantage to keeping Zorn open later as opposed to Lloyd’s is that it can take more traffic. And what we were looking for is that there were so many people wanting to go in at a later time, via our surveys and tracking the patterns. It made more sense.”
First-year and newly-appointed Treasurer Karen Cisneros raised a question regarding the decrease in dining dollars from previous years.
Walker, regional director of operations at Chartwells, explained that over the past five years, there was a 29.5% inflation in meal costs. “It got to a point where we needed to find a way to recoup some of that inflationary pressure onto food cost. So, rather than increase meal plans to significant amounts, we shuffled around dining dollars,” Walker said. “What that means is, students might see a lift in their meal plan price, but we’re still able to put all the food and products that we can without necessarily seeing a big spike. The last thing we want to do is not be affordable. That’s also how it is with Zorn, you get the same amount of swipes and we’d like people to use more of that, because as [Friley] said, keeping that open due to traffic and the amount of choices, and the fact that the team can do a lot more larger format cooking.”
When it was suggested that KSC Dining have a place where students can find information for commonly asked questions, Clark said when the meal plans first changed during last year’s spring semester, they had a FAQ page on Keene State Dining’s old website. However, since the site’s revamping, it has not been reinstated. Walker expressed interest in having one on either the dining website or Instagram.
Along with KSC Dining’s presentation, elections were held for the positions of a second member-at-large, treasurer and student senator. There were no nominations for a second member-at-large; however, Speaker Amanda Rotigliano said those at the meeting were welcome to reach out or ask for more information regarding the position, which could result in another election at the next meeting.
First-year Student Assembly Representative Karen Cisneros nominated herself for treasurer, with a secondary nomination by junior Off-Campus District Representative Liam Slattery, and won the position with a secret ballot of 4-1. As for the role of student senator, senior and At-Large Student Assembly Representative Nathan Hope self-nominated, and First-year Student Assembly Representative Collin Linderman seconded it. It was a unanimous vote in favor of Hope, who now holds the position of student senator alongside Rotigliano.
Also in attendance that evening were senior and Assembly Clerk Brandon Valley and sophomore and Student Body Vice President Bria Zimmerle.
Toward the end of the meeting there were a few mentioned courtesies, including Hootie’s Harvest Festival, which took place on the Student Center Lawn from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. on September 26, featuring live owls brought by Eco-Reps. In addition, Interfraternity Council recruitment began on October 1 and Panhellenic Council recruitment the following day for any students interested in Greek Life.
Rotigliano let the assembly know work will continue toward more faculty coming to speak at future meetings. Keri Lewis, the coordinator of student organization and involvement, as well as President Melinda Treadwell, will both be doing so on October 21, before Treadwell officially leaves Keene State.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:38 p.m.
Samantha Menard can be contacted at
smenard@kscequinox.com
Hope is the managing executive editor of The Equinox and was not involved in the process of writing or editing this Equinox article.
