Administer this: FULL INTERVIEW

CT

Has there ever been discussion about a 24-hour dining place on campus?

CAM

Yes. We met yesterday with the chairs of [Students’ Association’s] Projects and Services, and one of the key things we are going to be talking about this year are hours of operation… We only have anecdotal evidence from the students that did write comments, but there is no overwhelming set of comments that say “this is what we need.” It could be late night, it could be later hours at Pura Vida, it could be that whenever I get to dinner, say 8:30, you close at 8. So we really need to help establish that so that we can figure out what are the priorities… Now that we have Connections, that is the obvious place for us that would be open if we’re ever going to do something like that until we do renovations. But right now, in and out of a residence hall like Sue B is problematic. It was hard to get Hillside open the extra hour. It was hard to get people that don’t live in Susan B but somewhat up the hill in phase, it’s hard to get those students to realize what’s open and to get up and do down there… The other thing that we’ve looked at and what we’re continuing to try and figure out, is whether we can put vending on declining… The problem is that, with the people we’ve been dealing with so far, when they look at the New York State tax laws, they are telling us that we can’t use it for vending machines and still make it tax free. So we had to slow down — we haven’t stopped yet… It’s like I was telling freshmen when we were down at the Expo, and their parents, get a fridge, because you can stock your fridge with your meal plan. Don’t get caught at 3 in the morning with absolutely nothing to eat in your room… we’re going to continue to work with Projects and Services and let students know what we come up, both in long range and short range… The Pit is definitely happening this summer. The funding is all in place, you’ll hear the president announce that in several locations and the president is not announcing something that’s maybe happening. It’s on the books for this summer. There will be additional stations, it will eliminate two walls.

CT

Was there an overall consensus in the comments section of the survey of things that students really seemed to want?

CAM

We made a concerted effort last year to respond to the comment that there wasn’t enough healthy foods by doing more with fresh foods… But we still have students talking about we want more healthy. SO we spent a lot of time last year trying to narrow that down, because when you talk with students, there are some students that want 100% organic and that’s their perception of healthy, even if it’s organic Cheez Its. But then there are other students who say it’s the oil – there’s too much oil. So when they say healthy, they mean they want a healthy hamburger, which means they want to make sure there’s not a lot of grease in the hamburger and not a lot of oil in the hamburger… That’s one thing that we’re hearing a lot and some of the numbers seem to back that up – that you can show us improvement in vegetarian, you can show us improvement in using local and fresh foods, but I’m still thinking that some of this food is just not healthy. And when I talk to some students, I say what do you mean it’s not healthy and they say, well, the pizza has too much grease. And I want the pizza, but it would be healthier for me if it had less grease.

CT

Well then you’re going to get a backlash of people who just want a greasy slice of pizza.

CAM

Right. Honestly, it’s something we’re continuing to see, and, we knew we were doing this when we did it, but making the change that we made in Hillside, we’re taking away some things that people really liked, and giving them a healthier option in return. And telling them if they really want a piece of pizza, they can walk across the street and get it at the Pit. And if they really want a quesadilla, they can get them at Douglass. And if you really want an omelet, then you can get one from Danforth in the morning. The one thing we’re still working on is a late-night omelet. But if you want an omelet in the morning, go to Danforth. Please. We don’t want to close Danforth, but with the numbers that we have we’re going to have to close something for breakfast if we can’t get people to go to these places.

CT

We could understand the pizza, but Douglass closes at 8:30 and you have another five and half hours that Hillside stays open on top of that.

CAM

Right, so we’re going to continue to listen to what folks have to say. We haven’t seen, in the past, the sales numbers to indicate that people can’t live without quesadillas. So, we’ll find out how many people that really is and see if we have to add something somewhere else.

CT

Was the change also for budgetary reasons?

CAM

No, it was to do something new in that place to try and build business throughout the course of the day, something that also we hope will bring faculty and staff across the street… We used to do Paninis at Hillside, in addition to everything else, actually before quesadillas. We did pizza and Paninis but the Paninis weren’t under a hood and the state said you’ve got to have Panini grills under a hood. So we kept the pizza oven, killed the Paninis grills, and to give variety, brought in quesadillas.

CT

So there’s no hot breakfast anymore at Hillside?

CAM

No, no more hot breakfast.

CT

One thing I’ve noticed in the Pit. The roast beef is local and the obviously Zwiegel’s is local. Is the hamburger itself?

TIM

Well, just because its Sysco doesn’t mean it’s not local. Actually, Sysco is out of Syracuse, so we’re employing a bunch of people there. And they get distribution from local vendors, but the meat itself isn’t from beef cattle in New York.

CAM

The biggest problem with meat is it’s easier to go against the old distribution models for fruits and vegetables because there’s not much processing to that – that’s the whole idea. But there aren’t butchers right now. There isn’t a system of local farms or local growers or local cattle raisers feeding in to medium sized butchers. All the medium sized butchers went away, so you’ve got the huge ones that are processing beef from all over the world, and you’ve got the small ones, that are able to take care of the kind of meat that is going to farmers markets or local small businesses. And none of them can do the kind of volume we need for a single location. One thing for us to do – we’ve talked about it a little bit but I just don’t think we’ve found the right vendors – is to start doing it in pieces, and the Meliora is probably the best place for us to play. We’re going to be opening the Meliora for dinner one night a month, and so it could be that for those, we can serve local beef. The [farmers markets] that I’m most familiar with, more and more meat is appearing in those markets, but some of those vendors are already pulling out of selling at some of those markets because they can’t keep up with selling at four different markets each week. And so when I approach them about supplying a university, they say they’d love to but the usage is too much.

CT

What do we define as local?

CAM

We count New York state. But we strive to do as much as we can in Rochester.

TIM

We think of three kind of levels – Monroe County, then upstate, then New York State. We were the first university to become a member of the Pride of New York, so we’re really proud of showcasing all the items from New York State, because that’s what that project means. But anytime we can get something close by, we try and do that.

CT

One of the things that seems stubbornly low on the survey is nutritional content. How do you bring it up from 3.79?

CAM

I would guess by middle of September, we’re going to be about as full as we can get for displaying things online. As much as possible for us to trace will be available on our Web site.

CT

But the nutritional information itself will only be on the Web site?

TIM

In Danforth, it’s printed on the signs. So if you went in and it said chicken stirfry, it will show you what the nutritionals are. The other thing that we’ve done, because we found out that’s what students want, we have a dietitian intern who was part time but is now full time.

CAM

[The Pit] is about the only place where you can’t get out of the serving line and go check the Web site, and in Danforth the kiosk is just our menu – you can get it all right there. I think that’s probably the answer for us for other locations too. [According to] the National Association of College Food Services, people are expressing this all over the country. Some are putting calories on [the menu board], some are worried that if they put calories on, it curtails their flexibility. Because if they make a change, then they’re giving out wrong information. So there’s a big discussion about what to do with calorie information and what information can we put on the menu board. And a great example of that is New York City. They’ve got all the calorie information up on the menu boards, but if you go into a Mexican restaurant, for example, by the time you’re done, you have no idea what your calorie content is. Because you control what goes in your burrito.

CT

SA Senate had discussed an idea that had been floating around about changes to the Mel, and cutting back their wait staff. And I was wondering if that has gone into effect?

CAM

Two things: We looked at all the businesses on campus and said where does it look like we’re spending more money then we need to based on the number of customers we’re serving? And the two places were the Danforth/Hillside tandem at breakfast time and through lunch, and the other place was the Meliora. And what we offered to the Projects and Services committee and to the Dining Committee to close Hillside during the day. And based on the feedback, we’re still open during the day. For the Meliora, same thing. We know we can’t close the Mel, but we’re not seeing the traffic that we need to support what we’re doing up there, so we were going to not have wait staff serving lunch anymore. We were going to have people come in and have a variety of different menu ideas set up. But based on the feedback, we still have wait staff. But what we’ve come back with is basically both – what we’re going to do is, we cut the menu down, we cut out a lot of the things that weren’t being ordered a lot, picked most of the favorites, and made the menu a lot simpler, which should help with quality and speed of service. If they’re not having to cook 12 different things, we’re pretty comfortable their going to be able to do it quicker. And hopefully that helps deal with some of the issues on the service side. But on the service area, we’re going to have a different item every day, and it will be a feature, so like tacos for lunch.

CT

Why are Club meals only available at some locations around campus?

CAM

The Club Meal plan itself, that part of the dining plan is really there to support keeping places like Wilson, Danforth, Douglass, open. So when you take those clubs and allow them to be spent at Pura Vida and smaller locations, then one, that business crowds out cash and declining business so it cuts your total revenue, when you allow the clubs to go to those locations. And it doesn’t support the big locations, so as a result, what happens if you were to allow all of that to go on, you would start closing the bigger locations during the day... We want you to be able to use clubs to get a reasonable amount of choice in a variety of locations from almost the moment we open until 2 a.m. four days a week. That’s why Hillside is added in there, so that the very last thing that’s open, you can still utilize a club.

CT

It seems like Clubs are a pretty big hassle. Why are they incorporated into our meal plan in the first place?

CAM

That’s another question we’re going to hit this year with Projects and Services. In order to support the number of operations we have for the number of hours they are open, there has to be some fixed spend. This isn’t just something we made up. If you look at any other program, there is some fixed spend. And “fixed spend” basically means something that you’re paying into the program that you’re not going to get back. You actually get it all back, but not in ways that you know. Have you ever walked into Hillside at 3 in the afternoon and been the only student in there? If the answer is yes, well you pay for that. By buying the club meal plan, you pay for that… And as we tell freshmen, one of the things about clubs is that it’s a lot harder for it to all of a sudden disappear, like declining can. I’ve had students that have an addiction to Starbucks, so that by mid November they would have no declining left. But they can still eat, because they have the clubs.

CT

Is the buffalo chicken pizza from Hillside coming to the Pit?

TIM

We’ve committed Thomas to promise to rotate it in. We didn’t realize it was so popular.

CT

For all dining employees, is meal access provided or do they have to pay for them?

CAM

All dining employees get a meal free every six hours. They’re only allowed to eat in their own dining locations. The only time we transfer is if they’re still working in a unit, but it’s closed.

CT

I know that other schools have enforced a ban on water bottles, and I’m curious if there has been any talk of that here?

CAM

There’s certainly been talk. I’m against it and there are lots of reasons. One, I don’t believe in one set of rules for River Campus and one set of rules for the Medical Center, so if we’re going to do a ban it would be campus wide. And I don’t think it’s right to tell people that are visiting our hospital what they can and cannot drink. They’re not going to carry around refillable water bottles. The other thing is that, on a vending side, I ran a trial at the Expo by mistake. We’re trying, when we think about sustainability, not to give away bottles of plain water. There’s nothing to be gained there, we can do refill stations; we can let people know, as long as there’s bottles, that’s what we should do… But this year with the giveaway, we gave away flavored water, vitamin water and the problem with that is that that stuff is worse for you. And people don’t say, whether they’re standing in front of a vending machine or getting something free, they don’t say, “oh no, plain water is better for me, I’ll go to refill station. I’ll go get a bottle” They’re going to get that stuff right there. So you may be saying we banned bottled water, but you’re not decreasing the number of bottles that are being used on your campus and you may increasing the amount of sugar consumed on your campus… I have no problem with a campaign encouraging people not to drink bottled water — I don’t discourage that. But I don’t necessarily think that just all of a sudden banning it helps anything. It sells, and I am not a favor of sustainability for the sake of what sells. It’s a great thing to do if you want to make proclamations – if you want to say, see how sustainable we are, we’ve done this – but I don’t know how it necessarily gives you any real return. Same thing we’ve been fighting with compostable ware – you can go to all compostable ware, but if you’re taking it, sealing it in a plastic bag and sticking it in a landfill, you haven’t really done anything for the environment, you’ve just done something that can sell.