Dear Sodexho Management,
As a current student at the University of Denver living in the Centennial Halls residence building, I have the pleasure of dining in the Centennial Halls Dining Hall‒that is, if it’s open. On the University of Denver Dining Services homepage, the mission statement quote states that, “Sodexho makes every day a better day and every tomorrow a better tomorrow.” I tend to disagree when a student is unable to eat due to lack of operational hours of the dining hall. While there must be valid reasons as to the current schedule employed by the Centennial Halls Dining Hall, it is very difficult for a working student involved in extracurricular activities to achieve even a daily meal.
Currently, the Dining Hall in Centennial Halls serves breakfast from 7-9:30am, lunch from 11:15am-1:30pm, and dinner from 4:45-7:15. Between meals, continental breakfast and “lite” lunch are offered for the equivalent price of a full dinner or any other meal. These “lite” meals are not enough to constitute a balanced, healthy meal to feed the pressures experienced by college students; apples, oranges, and soup just don’t cut it. Many students manage work and extracurricular involvement along with classes and need complete and balanced meals to maintain the necessary energy to perform all of these required tasks. It is not a solution to merely ask students to eat during the allotted meal times. Many students have classes while lunch is served and don’t have time to visit the Dining Hall before work and meetings. If students are able to sneak time to visit the Dining Hall between meal times, they still are only able to obtain enough food to last a couple of hours.
The University of Denver encourages students to get involved on Campus and students have to work to be able to afford living here in the first place, and thus are busy all day, with no time to eat until later in the evening. Students who are involved and working are unable to eat a good meal at the end of their day because the Dining Hall is closed after 7:15, without even a “lite” option. How can students be expected to perform at optimal level for the University when they are not getting three or even one square meal a day. Poor eating habits have been proven to decrease overall performance in academics, thus lowering the image of the University as a whole.
The Dining Hall isn’t even open after 1:30pm on the weekends. The only option available to students living in Centennial Halls and Centennial Towers is to amble across campus to Nelson or Nagal Dining Halls. Walking across campus at night is not only inconvenient, but also dangerous. If weather conditions are hazardous it is dangerous to be walking across campus for dinner. Sidewalks and roads can be slick and icy, causing students to potentially slip and fall; perhaps even in the road where a car would be unable to stop.
On Friday and Saturday evenings, there is also the problem of overcrowding in Nelson Dining Hall. Since Centennial Halls Dining Hall feeds around 1,000 students, when it is closed, most of those students go to Nelson Dining Hall which is not big enough to serve such large amounts of people. It is nearly impossible to find a table big enough for more than two people during prime hours for dinner on the weekends in Nelson Dining Hall. The abundance of students eating in Nelson Dining Hall on the weekends is not only hard on students, but Sodexho workers as well. The workers that work in Nelson Dining Hall are forced to work significantly harder to feed the extra students and can be so busy the quality of service is reduced. If Centennial Halls Dining Hall were open, more workers would be needed, but these workers wouldn’t have to do so much more work than on a regular weekday and since the workload would be decreased, they would be able to finish their given tasks in a faster more time efficient manner.
The unreasonable hours of operation for Centennial Halls Dining Hall are unfair to both students and workers. Students pay good money for their meal plans to allow access to the Dining Hall, managing, work, classes, meetings, and extracurricular activities all the while. It’s not fair to have a meal consisting of soup and an apple cost the same amount of money as a full dinner with the payment of a “meal swipe.” Students living on one side of campus cannot be discriminated against because their Dining Hall serves less people. The hours of operation for Centennial Halls Dining Hall must be changed to ensure a better environment for current and future residents of Centennial Halls and Centennial Towers.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Student
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As one who wrote a very similar piece regarding Sodexo, it was refreshing to hear this strong argument. I like it, not so much because we're on the same page, but because it provides a different angle to the Sodexo issue from the one I chose to center around, but they both play into a larger question - is the company for students or for profit? You have a strong argument, particularly in your appeal to those students who work hard or anyone who eats late due to scheduling issues (especially when you note the conflicting pressures - the Univeristy encourages students to be involved, and many students work late just to afford it yet because the students are working to pay for the meal plan and tuition they can't even make use of it, due to Sodexo's inflexible hours. The only suggestion I might make is to quote or hyperlink to a quote from a university website or publication on student involvement in the section where you draw out the irony of a university committed to an active student body when its food provider can hardly accommodate students' schedules. Also, on a more minor note,you may consider refraining from using the full name of "Nelson Dining Hall" each time it is mentioned, maybe use that once and then continue with just "Nelson."
ReplyDeleteI think you have some great points! I make the argument in my post that Sodexo must become a client, not a provider, and I think that the synthesis of our arguments makes a strong appeal.
I like your argument regarding the hours of operation of the dining halls. While some might think that this is only a concern for the students in Centennial, it impacts every student who lives and eats on campus. I particularly liked that you structured your argument in a logical manner. By presenting the facts concerning the operational hours of the Dining Hall in Centennial, you made it easy to understand the heart of the issue. You also gave a number of sounds reasons why the current policy concerning hours of operation is not fair.
ReplyDeleteOne suggestion could make your argument more compelling. Though I mentioned this is an issue affecting all students, you might have more specifically addressed why all students should care about the operational hours of Centennial. You touch on this when you highlight overcrowding in Nelson Dining Hall. But you quickly move from the issue for students to the problems for the workers. While that is important too, more focus on the “why” for all students would be helpful. Another suggestion involves your observation concerning walking across campus at night. While certainly an issue, your argument makes a jump in logic from the opening statement of the paragraph to the discussion of walking at night. Perhaps a quick summary of dining times at Nelson and Nagal would have clarify the concern.
I think that your conclusion was strong and reviewed the important points of your argument. Your final statement provided a clear summation and a call to action.
I liked this writing assignment more than any other writing assignment this quarter because it was so easy to write about. When I find a topic to be relevant and if it’s something I feel strongly about then I’ll enjoy writing about it. This project was great because it gave that freedom to write about pretty much whatever you wanted to, within certain guidelines of course. My argument relied a lot pathos and ethos. I am clearly a qualified person to discuss the dining hall that directly affects me and I made a logical argument that appealed to the emotions of the reader, weather those feelings be anger or agreement. In editing for my portfolio, I will focus on using more quotations to establish more credibility so I don’t merely sound like a whining college student and my word choice.
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