The Lafayette - Dining Hearing Recording/Transcript

4:17PM Aug 31, 2023

Speakers:

Ainsley Carlson

Keywords:

people

students

eat

options

swipe

dining halls

dining

food

meals

feel

lafayette

year

paying

workers

meal

wanted

allergies

halal

simon

accommodation

Have you been addressed the concerns I've been hearing? And I just wanted to let you all know that she didn't say like swipes now you're going to swipe twice an hour and for dietary restrictions that should all be accommodated as well as philosophy surgery.

So those are just three of the stuff that we talked about this morning.

Illustration is very much on top of this issue, and working to solve any problem that we might be encountering. I don't think we can get right into an Excel spreadsheet.

I know time is short, so I'll be quick. I want to thank Student Government for changing their time from the evening till now to address this important teeny topic and we thank all of you for making time to come over here. I know some of you may be skipping lunch to come because we have some feedback they've asked about Thank you. You know, as I've heard about it, I also, you know, sort of made the rounds from cafeteria cafeteria, locational location and, you know, I saw the overcrowding, which has been sort of with us since Bon Appetit was here, right like that. There were things we continue to have to improve the food selection, I think that as you've been coming in on day four, some of that has been changing so to Olivia's comments about hearing feedback and making changes, that's why we're here as traders in the room as well, like we want to we want to hear your feedback. We also want it to be productive so what we're hearing, you know, we're gonna have recorded here in terms of keeping notes. So do probably also offer recommendations and suggestions as you can and if we can sort of accent each other as we prioritize, right? We may share 50 things. If we could say hey, here's the top five or 10 two that we really need to work on immediately. Let's see if we can, you know, snap if we're sort of hearing things that resonate with us too. Thank you.

So we can just get right into it. The first person signed up to speak

is Rebecca.

Have to stand up if you don't want to, but just

just by the way,

how does go and work to keep things orderly? Everyone is being a lot in a one minute speaking period. If we get through the entire list will then take hands and then you can speak after those who have already signed up to speak have spoken. If you'd like to sign up, please scan the code. We can't get to all of you. There's another QR code that we'll be handing out at the end of the presentation so that you can write down your comments and they will be shared directly. And I'll be keeping diamond right at 10 seconds.

Obviously wrap up those two after one minute. Okay, so I'm Rebecca I'm a sophomore and I was diagnosed with celiac disease a year ago. So I lived most of my life without it and I kind of know the both sides of it. And surely once you get that diagnosis, your entire life changes. So I did meet with dining and they basically told me that we can't guarantee anything. I'm I'm not a lab rat and this isn't a learning curve that I can afford. I've missed classes I miss my aunt's wedding. I've missed freshman convocation because of issues with dining before and this is just not something I can afford and it's not a risk I can take and this is my life. It affects everything that I do. And unlike certain people in dining I can't just clock out when the day is done. I was only able to get a meeting with dining after I left marquee dining hall crying after being yelled at and having a near panic attack. And that was unacceptable. There should have been more dining transparency, and even as an upperclassman I should have been reached out to so I just hope to see that in the future.

appreciate how change management is hard for dining halls, but to have a concern is a big concern for our religious group. The Halal sign is not on the food, science for food accommodation and some days people say oh, there's a lot of them working. I was at work yesterday, I had a conversation with one of the chefs he said, No, there isn't any halal food here and we're not like dealing with this vendor. But another friend was there. He asked one of the chefs and he said oh the check in here is Hello. So that's not quite accurate and clear. I have to write is the right to know is that halal or no and then make a choice to eat or no that's that's the first thing how clear is it? Second thing is that was something there exists the halal option. They can get out. It's like you can improve it or change it but you cannot pick it out and if the food is coming back, it should be clear and the sign is there so we can know and made our choice. Thanks

everybody, so I have a similar concern. I'm also a student leader as part of the Muslim Student Association. But beyond that, I'm also just a student. And while there is other options like just eating salad, just having carbs which I pretty much just had to do yesterday because there was literally no other option. I think that it's important to have a balanced diet in order to function at your best every day in school. It's not just for Muslims, there's also for those who follow kosher for those who would like to follow kosher firstly, I don't think they've ever been accommodated. But at least there was that option of head which is closer to kosher. Now you've gotten rid of both which has extremely affected both groups. You can't just say that it's only available my key because for a lot of people like me, if I have a class and I have to pray. That means I have a very short deadline right and that's generally my lunchtime on a day to day basis. I don't have time to make it down to my keep which means I don't have time to eat. Thank you

various things that you bring up that are valid.

So I've been putting most of my meals in where I live, so I'm still paying for the meal plan

and cooking my meals and I brought

my friends thought there could be more vegetarian options available and vegan.

Guided visual in our TSP, and I was told that one of the reasons why the new Swype options are so slim, is because some of the workers are still trained and whose preferences I'm not going to. But I understand that how during summer they came in corporate savings a lot was going on in two months into the symmetric garden. Why were staff not fully household that some of the items are lower going back to what we had last year. For example, your fingers how quick it takes too much to drink. Chicken fingers. We are telling the students you had deadlines. Deadlines as well.

I just wanted to I just wanted to say like I don't know I shouldn't the

things that are very terrible, but also in the workers perspective, I think people deserve. Like they deserve to also have a real environment to talk to any of the workers here they really hate it. And so I think that leads to worse for students, but also our staff because their

customer relationships are not.

Obviously,

workers have literally been having nightmares about this company and I've seen people crying.

I don't want to say names but there have been health issues The

president stressed

after about a seizure because they were under so much stress. That doesn't make sense, but I

thought I decided to talk about

this property because

like I trusted in

government, I just don't trust administrators and adults like if you're not going to do anything we are like we might use it the wrong way we have worked we will mobilize

to work so hard

like they work so hard like they give us call during Ramadan and they care so much about us to

do better please

Hi guys, my

name is Ariana. I wanted to thank Student Government for giving students the opportunity to speak as well as our workers who are trying so hard to balance the expectations of all sides. This issue is extremely important to me as students struggles with a variety of dietary restrictions, and also just a person who understands the simple importance of having good food. at Lafayette we are fortunate enough to have the resources to be able to provide students with the food that they want to eat. I'm paying 1000s of dollars for a meal plan when I have to use my part dollars to instead buy the options that I want. Which is something I don't understand. I know more options were released on mobile order. But I have a lot of unique dietary restrictions. I can't have sugar, I can't have grains. I can't have so many things unless I want to have a flare of my chronic symptoms. I don't want to be hospitalized. I still have to ask what ingredients are in a burger. I can't get a simple piece of meat without brown sugar on it, which is something that I don't understand there. are so many accommodations that needs to be like thought about not just the simple option of oh, we have letters from people who are beginning.

Hey, hello. So I was not here for the entirety of the meeting. So I apologize. I'm echoing what anybody else said but I just wanted to talk about like accommodation of food. Right? So like I'm Hindu. So I have reasons that I will be fasting for any sort of reason. And I know there's such different people that need to need food to be accommodated for like three people stuff that sort of kosher, whatever it may be. And I just feel like last year, there were way more options for accommodations like way more, right so if I was fasting for an entire week, I could have something for $1.07 days. You know what I mean? Now if I'm saucing, I can maybe have like three different options for the entire week. You know what I'm saying? And that's just that's just for me for my accommodations. And I know like people that are like, three and stuff that sort of, they don't even have anywhere close to what I thought what I can have. So I'm just I just wants to get to everybody's attention

so, one thing on my mind is like the market or whatever, I just don't understand why they would pay for like this to open this just market and then overcharge us so that they can find money that they're wasted as well as I just want to say like thank you to all the workers. Thank you to Student Council and thank you to everyone here who's making their voices heard. Because I think administrators should really just like take some time and just listen to us. And because I know we're all like in this together and we're trying to like understand the whole process of why like I just feel like for me, like this is such a drastic change for like everyone and I know I also have some like religious dietary restrictions too. So I don't want my burger that I asked for, to have like unnecessary amount of things that I want to be able to eat during that time. So thank you

more dollars and someone was on a financial aid

last year, especially when it came out it's just a burden on our dollars in our system is an emergency so just really unnecessary for us more often

that's something that I did not turn

on Simon's thing that's really absurd. I

haven't seen one person in there either Jr. By the way. But since I've gone to all assignments there's been nothing lower. I know you mentioned used to be a thing for all of us to hang out and go to I haven't seen one person that lower Gilbert's two bathrooms one burger and one sandwich.

stringently. I don't know but I thought oh my god.

Notice a lot of what's already been said but also the mobile order they completely changed the menus from last year. They removed a lot of well I think we're favorite items like Gilbert flatbread pizza and from what I've seen especially in lowers that there's not enough food staff like during like 630 like made dinner time there were three workers and some new got a summer job and and fast food place. I know that that is not how it should work. They need to hire workers, they need a place. Also they need to put up the menus instead of having people standing because it's just a waste of time and it makes all the time longer. Just need to do a full scale. Reorganization because what's going on is not working

so I think that I can relate to a lot of what's been said already one thing is I do try to eat vegetarian and I'd love to see more vegetarian options with more variety in vegetarian because I feel like there was a little bit more of that last year and this year, I haven't seen a lot and then also with Meal Swipes only being allowed to use two per hour. Just in general like being limited to when I can use my meal swipes is and like or like I want to be able to if I have an extra meal so I've I want to be able to say Oh, I'm going to swipe someone else into the dining hall because that is my money that I'm paying for that. So I want to have the ability to say what I do with my meal so it's also just having a little bit more clarity about like places like lower like the Grab and Go options. What can we gotten for meal swipe? Because I've been a little bit confused. I've had to talk to a few different people and gotten different answers. And even just like I know last year it was like a sandwich chips and a piece of fruit. Now it's just like a sandwich which for me like it's usually not I like to have a little bit more to a meal to hold myself over for longer. So just looking at that so maybe a little bit and also just like healthy options like Isn't it like a lot of what I've seen in the dining halls have been a lot of like kind of less coffee options to some stuff that might be a little bit

etcetera. And like the fact that I already had to skip meals or use Meal Swipes even to go into a place where I can't eat anything and I know that my friends I completely agree with what everyone said thus far, but I also think it's important that there's no menu

and it's hard to

not exactly what we've been getting very good lately

but there needs to be

an increase in options. And

like there needs to be a return to all stickers like.

I'm Julia

Ariel

so I've been here for actually it's my fifth year so that took a year off so I actually believe we're probably seeing the original Simon would have to be the same even he'll Simon's when there was actually hoagies and Sam flatford And like, good things and I feel like the new Simon's market is just an example of something like a need that was addressing something that wasn't a problem. People didn't ask for this like fancy Amazon technology. We're asking you to pay your workers.

How can you afford cameras but I

think $10 An hour

$13 An hour she was like Prime Minister because I love my job but people look at Taco Bell and that's honestly embarrassing for Lafayette they're proud of us because money and they're profiting off of the work. Also mas you want to say anything

to you guys for you guys

you How can I work for you if I don't have what to work? He listens to us to workers who've

been here eight years.

This is not to you how many guys I know there's a lot of new guys do freshmen students, which you've been with me how many years all the years that

you've been here? I bar

by way it's my job. So how am I supposed to work and give you what you guys need and I don't even have

it to work with myself.

Ra something like a little bit longer than most students have. And then my first week I had a severe allergic reaction to I don't even know what because none of the ingredients were listed on the food and seeing as I literally ate only a meat product and scrambled eggs. I don't know what was in the food that reacted to because there were no allergens listed. I know that two of my like lab partners have also had allergic reactions to food in the dining halls because of last minute changes that chefs spontaneously make rather than following a set ingredients list that needs to go into the foods that the students are eating and I remember having a meeting with John John of Sodor from Bon appetit and asking for labels to clearly mark allergens and he downright refused. So can we please just list the food ingredients since that would immediately help everyone and help students with allergies to know that they're being accommodated?

So I go to the back and I have to reel it back and

know about the origins because to not listen. And so I usually ended up relying on prepackaged food and like all along and like this pasta coffee for people it's not it's not reliable and it needs to be changed

data feeders so, so I am both a student and a repairman. So I've worked with both and I've seen how they can be so I didn't even close company is like, is there anything that has shifted in as a student? I, I would like to say you have to listen to students if you're going to come in and

you had a

good feedback before we didn't get that conquers did Parker's implemented like you're ever gonna get a murder but it's like lowered to be like, go into the staples workers like cubby where the workers

you have a lot of time and lowers you have more options. There should be a grill there should be a fire distribute and walk like she does like that. Like that wasn't something we said take away. Give us more options. Not take away

during the senior, I wanted to talk about the assignments. Some things have already been said about it. But I just wanted to mention that this is kind of a lesson for all of our engineering students here like if you want to if you want to create a new product you have to you have to beta test that product and you have to find what environment is right for that beta testing and whether that whether it will actually help its its customers. Clearly, not very much consideration has gone into the type of environment that was right for this product um it's it's not it's the types of good that goods that it's provides are seem to be like overpriced sort of almost luxury goods there's not many option options for people to work we're interested in. Yeah, interesting mealtimes. Essentially, like when people sit before it was something no one asks for, and it's not how to run that is not how to beta test the product

I agree

with everything everyone has already said. I just wanted to bring up like about the cost. So basically, we're paying like 1000s of dollars for this meal plan. With a bunch of meal swipes that we cannot change. I can't go down to my meal swipes because I technically don't have a kitchen. But I'm not using these Meal Swipes because I go I swipe and I see there's nothing here for me. There's no options for me. If I wanted to mobile order something it takes 200 minutes to mobile ordering. And it's a bowl of comments like with a couple of things sprinkled on top like whatever that's fine but I if you're gonna make everything our dollars give us more card dollars give us a

like, I will not use any music like I don't like it here. So if you give me all the Pardalis Oh by whatever I'll go down into Houston and use my part dollars, whatever. But you don't give us that option. You don't give us that option to teams to add part dollars and take away meals likes because I don't have that like disposable cash to be adding on our dollars

for these useless meal swipes and

put it in to my car dollars if that's what we have to do

I don't have much to say that people didn't already say it's just like very frustrating the lack of options and like the increasing costs and everything and also like I'm always saying, like more things I work hard dollars but not miss life. So like what are we supposed to do like yeah, I

don't know. I have seven meals a week and I don't want to waste them on things I'm

not going to eat so yeah

I

actually used to work last year. And that last spring semester, I took manager and this was the day before they announced done change. And it was like okay, we'll let you off the summer. But there's like next day, I never heard anything back and I thought ah, student I wasn't working

on my coworkers.

And yeah, they mentioned that even they like I knew one co worker, guess what for summer she had no idea what was happening with transition. It was just tension was horrible. Unfortunately, like loss of like, race people there those people there they were like my best friend class was private and it was held everywhere because unfortunately Lafayette parish like San Francisco, complain we'd get in trouble. Let me click Eclair one of the team managers. They were absolute assholes. They would literally come in and yell at you if you were not wearing black socks. But from what I've heard my coworkers their new management has been even worse. So the outcome chain, how worse you have to be and people who tell us not having black socks, and then detox and also one more thing this was shown on Apple TV, but students who do federal work study and work at Bon Appetit Park Lafayette dining, they actually get paid less and we work to be paid directly like hired from the company and I think that's just unacceptable to get paid for.

Finishing up repeat too much of what already said. So I'll start off with something that's really dear to me, which is Oh, it's right. I used to eat it goes in between my knees as well and now just cookies. That's one thing to note. But more importantly, I actually spoke to one of the workers yesterday and she tells me that there's no sick leave now. There's no paid leave. And this black shoes that they have to wear grown up tedious to provide for them. But now they have to guard themselves and that they just like shuffled around across campus while earlier they used to be working in like one specific spot right so those are the issues that even the workers are facing over here that I just wanted to go over. And other than that, I think everyone's spoken about like needs wipes and that sort of stuff. The fact that you can only swipe once per hour this. This means that I got right now. I wasn't able to swipe for it. Nice system wasn't working. So I feel like they've actually taken away the power. He swipes hard by charging you the same amount and the cost of everything is going up but what you can get with him he is like is going down SEO

everybody First off, I really want to echo thank you for your workers. We know that all of you are taking an incredible amount of money that Lafayette and Hartford is not a foreign concept but you've at least be able to pay your workers enough to survive how we

understand we're here often dependent on you on a daily basis and I really don't get it. Harper should be doing better. Right. When did Darrell elected for duty when they can't even provide basic accommodation to every student. This is something that should be mandatory by law by the way we can't

thank you. Thank you it's a it's okay.

So I'm just like you said like I feel like everything has been said already. First of all, thank you to the staff. We hear you and we're here with you guys. I just had like it was part of international orientation and explaining like the new college and the new environmental Oh, this kid's got increasingly difficult to say good things about dining halls and very bad boys. Like we understand that everything that all the work has been put into that and we don't under appreciate that. But just seeing like trying to understand how the money's being allocated in the school. is just getting more and more absurd. Like everywhere I go like every time I see a new reservation or a new like a billboard that has been built yet, as we speaking like, workers aren't getting underpaid, understaffed and just under appreciated by by the Columbia staff. And so I'm just like, gonna like say like, there's so many good things about like that people have been seeing here. Give us more options instead of picking the options. If you're gonna start implementing more of the Pardalis which we saw advocate about having partners downtown. We can use them they give us more partners and more flexibility in our dining plans in order to use them. And there's like few of the students because we are the ones that are using your services, not your partners or like sponsors at the end. We're the ones that are seeing everything that's been going like we're going to be the ones who are going to be using of the services. So if they're not listening to the faculty and staff and the students they whatever needs to point for everything.

Until I really just on a structure and schedules, especially when it comes to comfort.

I live in Fisher, so I'm I'm elsewhere, but I purposely up my meal swipes to 14 because I have a very difficult time taking care of myself. So I really depend on the dining hall to feed me. And so it's really difficult that I have 14 meal slides and I've only used three this week. Because every time I walk into the dining hall, it is actual torture. I walk around in circles looking for something to eat and I walk out with I haven't eaten at all to anything. And that is because of the things that we need our fries that we need our comfort foods that we know students enjoy and that we use, and also the quantity of food is not enough. Last year I had to use two meals laughs in order to feed myself and chicken tenders and now I can't even do

it Christina

before I agree with everything you said

I just wanted to be off and that's going to be really quick.

No particular

order. More meal swipe options I can afford to spend the extra $4 For my own money. bring back peace and comfort foods. It's good to have chicken tenders right now,

upper hearty are way too crowded because people need to swipe things.

They also need to have different menus so you can see where you want to go. Easier customization. I can't have a plain the role cheese or need to get off on a piece of gear right now. Just bring back old favorites like everything like chickens tenders watching Real Estate or flatlines the app keeps crashing there's a long wait times better quality. Someone said they got food poisoning. I got it two days from the gate from the hamburger. Everything is like dry area. Options are lower than getting orders wrong, putting things on it unnecessarily just to fix the seating or allergy restrictions. Everyone says they're starving and the workers are unhappy

I don't know most of y'all, but I'm assuming like these dining options are more I go into lower and I can't even get water from the boundary because I have to buy it from the sun. Which already there's no shame in that. I'm a cheap man, but it is not okay to do this to our students. I want to eat. I like food. Right? It's not cool. There's no options. There's no options for my fellow friends who either have things that they cannot eat, things that they don't want to eat, and we are forced to wait for hours from us in between classes and we can't even eat them. It's not cool. It's not fair. It's not right and it needs to be changed. We are part of different communities on the school. We are part of the communities but we are students nonetheless. We need to take a stand and even talk about this. I want to eat. I like food. It's simple. I don't like this food. And I don't think anybody here really does either. That's all I got to say.

I can't speak

after like the restrictions

are phasing out was to put the old

the higher

the ask for system the system works. The system works because it has noticed how the system has and I know that there are schools that don't talk to you because other students have asked for things that you're grateful for prior

breast

support simplest of things

you can order from them

provide medical for food.

fixtures have been testing for so many years.

On progressive allergies when it was.

happening this section we're going to get there and if nothing is done about it truly we know for testing ground position test.

Everyone

but it's been very difficult to get around mobility if you are not working every day asked about his most important project so much more traffic in or out and everything is kind of like shoved together so like you have to get around to putting them away because they go

on you got people not going through the dining halls have often like all affair not because there's just not a problem

I'm a freshman but we're like literally required to have 20 Meal Swipes a week. So that's obviously really expensive. And I have not used like barely any of them or if I have I've walked into opera and then walked out because I literally cannot find anything. Like my roommate and I have both been going to bed starving and also it's like we can't the price of the school. It's like really expensive. And so it gives me actual anxiety and like makes me physically sick to think about going off and spending money somewhere else when I'm paying for this 20 meals swipe plan that I didn't even want to begin with. So that's like all I really want to say about that

Hello, so similar

Tyrell, I was here kind of pre COVID And I have to say that Simon's while I admit walking down there was a track. The food itself was a really nice change of pace and I felt like it was pretty consistent for people. And I would say that now the majority of people I know going into assignments, they're either skeptical about going in because they're going to be overcharged or they also just don't want their face on 100 of Lafayette cameras because that's just something that they don't feel like is like privacy makes them feel comfortable. But in addition, I'm someone who likes to prepare ahead with the kinds of things that I'm going to be able to eat and the fact that we publish menus and then don't follow them anyway, completely goes against the point of publishing them in the first place. Particularly for people if they have allergies. Me I'm severely lactose intolerant if i Anything with dairy or like certain combinations of things, I can be really sick. And so if I go in knowing okay, this day, they're gonna have something other than a really cheesy pasta. And then I go in and it's like ZD galore. Like that's not something that is the most like comforting for me. But also in general, I would say you know we have Wawa it is here. Everyone goes and uses that. So I think the creation of Simon's wallet is like a high tech cool thing to be able to say we're the first people in the Lehigh Valley to use that is great. But at the same time if we want more of the interaction with Lafayette students who are working in our facilities, interactions with people that are hired by Lafayette and in addition, we just want kind of that consistent food that we know that we can turn to lower now so I'm posted a picture of it being completely empty. That used to be a hotspot on our campus. And now the fact that that is completely gone. We didn't get any of those menus before we got to campus so we all had to arrive here and then realize that our chicken tenders were gone. If there was even some forewarning or some kind of conversation ahead of time to get some feedback on that. I think that would have made us feel a lot more comfortable. But also I think I haven't seen any faculty eating in our dining halls. They're not trying our food. They have a separate dining hall, which is fine because their schedules may be different but if we felt like some of our staff and faculty were sitting and having the same experience at us, it would at least make us feel like we were more seen. So even if there was you know, once a week faculty can come and eat with us. Maybe those days the food would be better. I don't know. But it's just important that having more visibility of faculty in our dining halls eating what we eat, I always say be going through it too.

So I want to say that a number of times I just got here, but a couple of things. For one thing, I don't know why they removed all the lights for you to get in lower, like used to be able to just get on with your sandwich. And now you have to like ask for it, which is like fine, you can ask for whatever, but it's just kind of like a silly thing like oh, it's such a problem for students like I guess maybe it was a problem that students were taking like a 50 cent healthy snack like that. You know, they used to have a big wall of chips. And like also with the fruit they could just put it where the candy is because who honestly like what like I feel like I'm like in third grade like who's gonna be eating all that candy. So they they really don't want people seeing the fruit they just put it where they can use and it's the kind of artists deal. Also where's the chips go in lower like use different kinds of chips with a meal. Also, I think this whole thing of like putting, especially in a for whatever they're curvy. So thing where they put it in the cubbies. It's like why why do we have to have this big wall separating us from the, you know, employees. That place used to be like so lively and nice to go to. And now it's like sterile and cold. And it's just like get your meal and leave. And then like all that would be fine. It's like adjustments to your dying program or whatever. But I think I think the worst thing is honestly Simon's where instead of giving us back like a new dining hall that we desperately kind of needed like a new dining option. We get this dumb, overpriced corporate vanity project. That no one asked for. You know, I don't want to be like, Oh, I'm so entitled to but you know, we're paying a lot for deals and we deserve you know, and Simon's is so Simon's is so god damn expensive. Like I'm never gonna use it. I don't know about you guys.

So yeah, that's that's about it

everybody I talk to me soon we have from the Muslim Students Association. I needed to write something because I left out another body that are part of the International Students Association. My friend Danny was also leading the international orientation. But I was also one of the people involved. We had students coming in the catering process was so difficult to even get them to bring us food in the first place. As I was talking to the staff in charge of completing the process, and she was frustrated constantly on top of handling, managing so many students coming in from all around the world and making sure that they had the most pleasant experience to say welcome to America Welcome to Lafayette the college that you chose from places miles away and then we're gonna welcome you by not even giving you the food that you need. And in that matter Firstly, when we had breakfast they brought out potatoes and French toast to a bunch of international students who literally just got here days ago, and they have so many different requirements as well. We had students that are coming in with talent requirements, and I had a kid come up and tell me the one day that we ordered outside from took his food he said thank you so much. I finally get to eat food. Finally. I don't want him to have to go through four years of not getting to eat again. I don't want him to have to go through the same issues with labeling that I had previously where you don't put that there's bacon on the phone and I'm eating what I think is cabbage and you cut up tiny pieces of bacon and throw them in there. This is an ongoing issue. And it's just made worse now because we don't even have the halal option now. So now not only worried about him not being able to eat. I'm worried about him eating something that he shouldn't be eating. This is not just I'm a picky eater. This is something that's my religion. I believe by paying. I have that right. And I believe that all these international students should have the right to feel welcome to this other country that they chose to come to thank

you my name is Karolina I'm a junior and I have a lot of I have celiac disease and a lot of food allergies. And I generally I do a lot of times in the past I usually need to get stuff from the kitchen. Go back and in the past, even though I recognize no or no restaurant no I'm going to have a lot of options. But every dining location in the past I've been able to go and get seafood. Lower Gilbert's both dining halls, I've always been able to go and get a safe meal and the staff there are always very willing to help and they were always very willing to like help us out like other food allergy students, and now they don't have the stuff to help us out with. Like they don't have stuff back there to like, give us they have the allergen section, but they supply enough food for only allergy students and put it out with all the food so everyone can take it and there's nothing left and with a lot of like the newer people might not have known us and notice before there was a lack of knowledge on allergies that I was really concerned about. I have celiac disease, and I went to see if there's anything for me in the gluten free section. And there was Rice Krispie treats on brown rice krispie treats, which if you don't know they have lots of them and malt is a major source of gluten. So I went up to an employee and I said excuse me, someone knew who I'd met before. These have gluten that this has all and she told me no it does not because it doesn't have and that was extremely concerning to me that like a fairly common gluten containing ingredient was not known. And additionally with the other diet. I've only been to the main dining halls because I looked at the menus of the other options. I think there were maybe if cross examination wasn't an issue, like one thing I could eat and without going up in par dollars like you can't get if you want to get your sandwich on a gluten free bond you need to use par dollars if you want more access to more like options that are accommodating to a lot of allergies, you need to use our dollars and I think that's really messed up because my seven meals and my tuition cost the same as everyone else's seven meals and everyone else's tuition. So just because we have health issues and dietary restrictions and allergies, that should not mean that we cannot access all of the same facilities on campus to eat or that we should have to pay more to access our facilities because in our like seven meals, 20 meals 40 meals go the same way. Save just as far as everyone else's and so we're really upset this week.

Everyone has already been said

many concerns is the promotion even if it's unintentional. Whether it's developing one, making it worse, triggering personal recovery and relapses. It's going to be the second most deadly mental illness only to opioid overdose. Put that in perspective for you. I've heard from so many people, it's triggered. It's painful. It's completely unacceptable. For any school, especially when we're paying so much money to be here. My experience and the experiences and many others this school has no regard for our health and well being and human. There are people in here that actually have the power to do something. I'm not inclined to believe that this isn't just performative. And I speak I think I speak for myself and many others when I say that there's no more trust at the school the trust is gone.

I'm not enough time to get everything that I really wanted to say. One thing that I have an issue with, it's this idea that there are nine main allergens and that's all that we care about. I have Crohn's disease. So my part of my treatment plan is a very, very restricted diet. Things like sugar, things like potatoes, things that may be allergy friendly for a lot of the main nine allergens, I can't have. So not having those options, not being able to go actually into the back of the kitchens and speak to the people who are preparing my food, which I used to do last year and was not an issue. I saw Caroline and there we were buddies We met through that, but not being able to have that face to face interaction with the people that are making my food knowing that they care about me they understand that if I have something that I can't have, I might be to flare I might be sent to the hospital. Like this is serious. So like just becoming another meal ticket like choosing oh I have a soy allergy which I don't have a soy allergy, but if there's soy my meal, like it might set me off. So just having people to understand that I really know like, there's so many things. It's so much deeper than just like I'm allergic to peanuts. Like that's the one thing that I want to say. And the other thing was, I don't know who mentioned it but it was something I think it might have been Jada like the fact that we walked by lower and I don't see those lovely faces anywhere anymore. It's cubbies there's people coming out with a card and putting it down and walking away. So many people's food has been taken because of this like it's not being monitored at all. I used to make such good connections with the people that were sitting there. It's just that like mental aspect of meeting people in the dining halls and knowing who's making your food and seeing those connections, seeing lovely faces like that, honestly was so upsetting to me and I didn't expect it to actually affect me that much but knowing that like people have lost their jobs. My my homeboy, Terry, I used to talk to him all the time in marquee like I have not seen him around so I don't know what you got hired. But just like those people that you make connections with that you know, care about you and your situation. That's so unfortunate that something is like little as that is something that has turned out to be such a big loss for us. So

stick around

Okay, so I wanted to bring up on all three, but I think I ever could, but I will tell a short story about my experience Dynamo. So last week during my training I, Christine God came in and she did have a dispute about all of us doing and so I asked her what I was thinking last last year. And she was like now, a lot of things are already murky. And when I brought up that one of the weekends, she didn't even know when Mark is closed when when Mark is building so I think that says a lot when you're head of dining doesn't even know the opening and the closing things for your dining halls. And she was like okay, you can give feedback and I'll get back to so Alright, fair enough stuff happens. So I have Ken burns the ad emailer using haters in order to reach out to you and want to talk to you about Alana, no response. One week later, I emailed her again, it was like, hey, remember, we talked you said I could email you? When is a good time to talk? So the response. So there's this lack of accountability that I've been seeing, and I think one thing that concerns all of us and the second thing that I want to bring up was so new freshmen came in all of them came to me and they were like Muslim freshmen came up to me and we have these 20 implants. But when you will swipe a spot, there's no there's nothing for us to eat. And so what do we do? What do we use a new transport? And I just didn't know what to tell them because for me, it's the same scenario where I am paying if I work it out. 17 point $5 For me 17 point $5 I can go out I get worried I didn't get a lot of I can get good food, but now being 70 point $5 for stuff that I can't even get

it doesn't become a pain when the business is providing a service to a group of people. The main goal is only to guarantee a profit for the business itself and to the point of making the services functional for the people that are providing the service for them. But cyber security's there's a lot of examples about have like, I don't know reflectiveness idea which is not an assumption with attacking systems. Lack of fair commendations, because they wanted to bring something else that would add up to a conversation is the fact that we're paying for a home meal plan. There's a lot of restrictions to stop new. We're getting pretty much all the meal plans to get to at least 100 meals per semester and only $50 I don't understand what the point is, and like putting restrictions on using those meals like nobody wanting that two meals per hour, but having a lot of options that are restricted to our dollars and dining services such as this cafe lower. And like many of us find ourselves in previous years in a situation where for any reason we were not able to spend all our meals by Friday night, which is good on an amendment lowered

whoever we're not only

since we already have

an established meals president in 2014 or seven depending on how well our kitchen is in place. I think there's a solution, which is making things a little bit better. Is not cheap, which is I mean I do want to get to like if we get in the same situation. We're not gonna go in and use a bunch of meals in advance of the service. We are trying to use the whole extent of what we're ready to pay for and what we need to some extent we're also forced. Many of us rely on 14 meals or 20 meals because there's kind of, let's say engineering majors or dual degrees, double majors of any, any, any many disciplines. So I don't know. I can go so

the solution

does not believe your palms to communicate with what's being implemented from one to two meals per hour. I don't think it's a solution to the problem. It doesn't reflect any changes in the mindset

speech

so like I, all you hear people talking about the majority of what I talked about, in essence, is my talk to everyone. Whether they're vegetarian, whether they have dietary restrictions, literally. And like It's just frustrating to watch my friends go without meals, and I know that there would be a lot more people out there because she didn't have she had a class and she would have caught because she's not been able to eat because of like, for like restrictions and like it's frustrating to just watch this like I haven't eaten and I'm a vegetarian because I can still like go and grab like pasta or something. Even if it's not nutritious for me. I still feel like me like I'm not getting my dietary needs right now. I'm not feeling good because like

and like

looking at stuff, like but it's just it's so frustrating. And I just, I miss your message. Because I wanted to stay here and talk about this and make sure that people like understood. I email my professor, the fact that he understood and said that he's heard about this is telling itself like that. It's just so widespread that everyone knows, you know, and I know I just I just really want to see

Yeah, so I have spoken to a couple of football players who are here for the entire summer and they pretty much said that the entire summer was burgers and fries which is pretty despicable in my opinion. It is the lack of diversity is quite disgusting. And personally coming from like a background of like, pretty very food types to come and be like oh my gosh, yay. So Mediterranean options at lower and have it be a literal bowl of slop is absolutely disgusting. I mean, who eats hummus plain? Like I just think that the the new diet program they need to like actually work with the students and like figure out what students want to eat. Because just kind of like, figure out what they might want is not a good approach and kind of just using our money to like, I don't know, play around with wherever they want and have it just come out to like mac and cheese and like physical eyes, and maybe some spinach on the salad station is absolutely disgusting. I have literally starving, a sort of restrictions. I can't eat half the stuff they put out. It's just, it's gross. I tried the hummus bowl. It was disgusting. It's literally just hummus. Why is it so hard to like do some research on some different food groups, whether that be halal, whether that be kosher, whether that be Mediterranean, literally any food group, why can we not do the proper research to make those foods like appealing and affordable and available for all the students on campus? It's just it's a shitty waste

the biggest thing for me is the fact that we're paying so much more than last year, and yet we have worse options. I feel like you would expect that if you're paying so much more to Michigan breeds so much for each person that you would get better options or if not, at the very least like the same as last year, but the fact that like, we have barely anything and we're paying so much more it's just ridiculous. Like I've been eating tofu every single day I don't like tofu. And it's just it's fine if I was paying for tofu everyday but I'm not paying for that. I paid a lot of money for this. And on top of that, I think it's ridiculous to say that Lafayette is like all inclusive and like we respect all religions, all everything and then just get rid of the halal food like that is

ridiculous.

But a pretty huge issue

that I've seen is just a humongous lack of transparency from the school itself where our money is actually going. I have friends that go to the go to Smith, smaller school than us it's literally way smaller. It's not even a D one school and their options are infinitely better. Their school is run from what I can tell like way more efficiently. The people actually pay live away with this and the school is transparent with them as to where they're at $1,000 a year it's going like I think that this is ridiculous that we pay so much more

and like we just I have no idea where it's going like that millions of dollars Simon project like I get it, it's cool, but I just I can't understand why we needed that nobody asked for it

mean I've already spoke and gone over like the concerns about football and dining but this is more of a concern for the next semester because last semester before these changes are made there already issues with how they work with like Passover food, like you know, since they can't eat raisin bread, and that's usually and I usually like you know, try to keep kosher during Passover if not for the rest of the year. And that was already concerned. So let's say like, badly treated like halal and kosher so far and I think like it was bad last year then Oh god, it's gonna be so much worse unless something is actually done about it and that goes to all the religious like students and there needs to have certain dining Thank you

wait, would you like I think there's been burgers and opera like very consistently and to me that's like not really a nutritious meal. But I like having a burger every now and then but that's just not really like considered to be healthy and balanced. I feel like even like last night my roommate I didn't go to upper but she was telling me about all of the options were like burger mac and cheese like two types of breaded chicken which just with all of these options that are just not really as healthy and I just think it's already It's bad enough that we like aren't catering to like, like, religion and dietary restrictions, but also just it would be nice if like the like others actually the survey and healthier coffins.

The options are

very limited and they seem to be like running out pretty quickly. And for me I used I used to utilize Ico a lot because I'm always on STEM campus. I passed back to back labs and so just in terms of like maybe looking at that and making sure that there are options there for students for lunches especially because the current selections are limited. I think that for me like

sometimes

that was just something that I didn't notice was that you know, like, there wasn't as much stuff there. As there used to be which does

is as equally important. The desires and needs are as are designing stuff. And I think even in efficiencies that happened last year, we still appreciate the face to face interaction with the people. It is not encouraging nor is it a proud thing to be a lovely student and know that your dining staff is not too annoying that they need to. So if we are looking for forward plans, I think it's also considering how we can manage students expectations and dining style, ensure they're treated the right way that they have spaces, that they have food options that they're able to give feedback to the dining all those things ultimately sequences

Yeah, so I just want to reiterate a point made earlier. As a freshman we're only allowed the 20 meal swipe plan which in turn is the most expensive one. And personally, I haven't used more than two swipes in one day. So the fact that we're forced to follow an option that just simply doesn't work for everyone. That's unacceptable. And I also think it's unacceptable that it took for basically everyone to complain about the food situation for the administration. to even acknowledge it. So I think there has to be better accountability for people in charge

so I think this kind of goes back even before this year, Rosa no like, you know they had the trolley stop and then they got from the trolley stopping on the Jacksons. I've never stepped foot in Miss Jackson, but wanted to it's probably a nice spot but the fact that we can't use the bill swiping is a problem like trying to stop was cool because you'd be able to get a swipe and that will cause like 878 dollars, whatever and whatever you got after that was you know a little bit extra but for the most part, you can probably stop foot seven, eight. And I think that, you know, I don't know how many people are using the Jacksons. I can assume that being in my favorite thing about my Jacket, jacket. But the fact that I feel like that's a lot of space up there that could be potentially used as another option that nobody's really used it. I think that I miss having, you know, the chip woman like somebody mentioned earlier, I'm just being able to go get a cup and get some some soda, some juice or some water whenever I wanted to. We can't do that. Now. What an economist that was on the board is don't like hot sauce. There's no this there's no bad I missed the cookies and the little muffin he's been able to get over five namely want to get enough in the fact that that was a middle swipe. I think that just having some you know swipe in general is really something that's been lacking and that would really help a lot overall. And also like, I'm not gonna lie like people complain last year about food, but I feel like people took the complaints and put them in the home and and just missed the record and so the wrong thing. We was mad about the quality of the food and we kept the same stuff in last year and it was just better. It was you know, there will be a different conversation. I felt like there wouldn't be as much backlash as to what was going on. Good we went stuff was sustainable like you want to watch everything else was so crowded because nobody wanted to lower and nobody wanted to lower and that was at this time of day like the hotspot to go when you need something quick and leave. Now am I going to upper and upper now. The lobby in the model room lobby downstairs like you know you go to marquee aid and you know people that have accessibility issues you can move around because when I want lower and everything on those other places. So yeah, I think you know, just it also somebody came in some lady came up to your marquee and was like, oh how dining and all that and I'll say like we have awesome Reese like almost no some burgers and fries in law because you know, that's the late night spot. You know, you go on a Friday night, Saturday night. We're gone party. I forgot the party.

We came back early. You get

some of that. I'm not eating hummus. Nobody is so I think so I said that. And she goes, Uh, we got you know, I want burgers and fries. We should go but we got food for that we got risky, and we got hummus. And so she said how much you lost because that's not what we're talking about. So I think on top of that, I feel like that's really indicative of power of institution runs. It's like you'll have selective hearing and you hear what you want to hear and then make adjustments that you feel are beneficial to us. With that

thank you so much. After a little bit of laughter I can confidently say this. I just want to make a closing statement. Now that I'm at least a little bit more held together. I want to say thank you all for coming. I mean so much that we have this opportunity to actually say something in front of administration and I want to ask something very important. As we're facing a situation where there's no longer the ability to even go to the back room and ask for accommodations because of the severe lack of accommodation already in the front sections where everybody is going to be facing a situation where students who have fasting situations nonetheless, Ramadan, 30 days of fasting, and even often when I've had food to pick my first one, we're facing situations where so many students I had students crying because of the diseases because of the things that they're having issues with. We're facing the situation right now. And we're looking to the administration, and this short little lunch hour that we have to try to get everything on all of our minds collectively as a student body for the many concerns

that are legitimate or not just something but that

I have this disease that will literally lead to me go into the hospital that are this is breaking my religion right we have an excuse. So my question my big ask is if it could be possible to increase accountability by having a situation where students are more regularly able to meet with the administration or maybe as we have a student government, we could have a sub situation where we've put together student leaders to talk to administration so that we know that there's accountability because like everybody else normal kind of find the past I'm a junior the past how many years about saying things about Halal abstain from eating pork when it was labeled as vegetarian, about students having various diseases, allergies, about all of these legitimate issues and nobody doing anything? And so as a situation has now gotten so drastically worse, I've brought it up to saying, can we actually make this a claim? Because, as a Muslim, I was taught to be grateful for everything. And I'm so legitimately grateful I don't have this feeling of privilege. And legitimately sad about students who are paying should feel the right to say something. I don't even have that. I'm just happy to be here. And I'm so grateful that I'm here. But as I am here, on behalf of me and the main students all around what presented I asked you humbly to please not just consider us in this one hour, but to consider having us be actually involved and to actually listen to us, not just now, but moving forward. For the students far beyond our time. So we graduate, we can say once a year is now a better place. And they actually care about what we have to say. So I can say to students, you won't say something and three years later, you're going to show up right back in the same spot. Feeling like nobody hurts you and feeling like you're sitting there starving all day. Thank you so much

do we have anybody else or anybody? I wanted to say again, echo your statements and say thank you all for coming. Thank you all for being here for voicing your concerns. We as student government take this very seriously. And this is the number one thing on there right now. Any day without you know proper food, you know, food that you need, whether it's a dietary restriction or religious observance, any one day is too long for us. So, next week, our dining ad hoc is meeting with dining officially they're having a sit down meeting to discuss these concerns. We've had everything recorded. And if you want to follow up with us, please please do you can email the CEU. gov email you can email me or anybody else you know wants to gov. If you have any more questions or concerns, please reach out to us. You can come up to me after this meeting. And I just wanted to say thank you again all for being here

we go so it was I think it was broken. Yeah,

wait how do I turn off this is it

or you have no idea? Because he told

me to like press pause, but it shut off. I just closed the computer. Thanks. Goodbye. to close the computer thanks goodbye Excuse me

all right