Students' Knowledge of UK Dining News

               This will be the third and final part in my analysis of my survey. In the last question of my survey I covered the topic of outsourcing to Aramark. I thought this would be a good point of discussion, especially since it pertains to my narrower research topic. I asked students whether or not they liked the fact that UK outsourced its food services to Aramark.

               Only 4% of the students that I polled said that they thought this new partnership was beneficial. Then 31% said that they did not like Aramark running UK Dining. Much of the opposition has come because of the meal swipe regulations that were brought about this semester. Last of all 65% were indifferent to the whole thing, whether it was because they didn’t care, didn’t see a difference, or didn’t know about it.

What I found surprising is that upon asking this question many of the students asked “What is Aramark?” or “What happened with the dining services?” I guess it didn’t strike me that most students don’t do research on the dining services at their college. I guess because I’ve done the research I know about the contract signed with Aramark this past summer, but if you don’t monitor campus news it’s not really common knowledge.

It is kind of important to know about UK’s outsourcing of dining services. For example if you have a problem with the service you are getting you have to know not to complain to the University because that would not get you anywhere. So this past week when there were people running for Freshmen Senate on the grounds of changing whatever they thought was wrong with the dining program, you would know that there is not much they can do about it and they obviously haven’t done their research. 

Students' Relationship with On-Campus Restaurants

               This will be another blog analyzing the results of my survey for this week. The numerous restaurants on campus at the University of Kentucky were a big topic of my survey. Ovid’s, K-Lair, and the student center are the most popular places, but there’s many more of these restaurants scattered across campus.

               I wanted to know how many times people eat at the on-campus restaurants per week. Just like with dining halls, 48% of the students polled eat at these restaurants less than three times a week. Unlike the frequency of students that go to dining halls, with on-campus restaurants there is a little over a quarter of students eat at these locations five to six times per week. There’s even 13% that go over eight times in just one week.

               As far as people’s satisfaction when eating at these places, all of the students that I polled said that they liked the food served at the on-campus restaurants. This probably has to do with the amazing variety that this type of food service offers. Everyone’s bound to find at least one restaurant that they enjoy eating at on-campus.

               Even though students enjoyed eating at these restaurants around campus, they are not without flaw. Many students expressed that they didn’t like the new meal swipe regulations implemented this year. Some also brought up that efficiency is a problem, especially when the lines for food get really long. Some students also feel that there are locations on campus that should probably increase their hours of operation.

               Again the accuracy of these results is not the best, because of the lack of students polled. I think that the variety of the students that I interviewed makes up for this fact. I made an effort to interview upperclassmen and freshmen, on-campus students and off-campus students.

Students' Relationship with Dining Halls

               This week I decided to do a survey of students on campus about what they think of campus dining at UK. I polled them on a number of things such as how many times a week they go to certain places on campus, what they think needs improvement, and whether or not they agree with the University’s decision to outsource the food services. One of the major topics of this survey was the major dining halls on campus.

               The first question I asked was on average how many times a week do you go to the two large dining halls on campus, Blazer and Commons. I found that the majority of the students go less than three times a week. Then 26% of students eat there only four times a week. It turned out that was a very small number of students that eat in these dining halls more than 6 times a week.

               To go along with this question I asked them if they liked the food they serve at these dining halls. A surprising 81% said that they did like the food.  I was pretty surprised that with the things you hear about college food that only 19% said they disliked it.

               Then I proceeded with what the student thought should be improved with Blazer and Commons. The majority of students wanted better quality of food, which is expected of college students but sadly not expected of college food. There were also many who would like more variety in their meals. Other concerns included cleanliness, healthier foods, and to be more allergy friendly.

               Overall I think the results were pretty accurate. Although my sample size was a tad small at only 23 students, I think it reflected a variety of types of students. I also wasn’t expecting to have that many students who went less than 3 times a week, but I obviously didn’t consider the off-campus students. It might have been better to poll only on-campus students.

Tough Times Call for Tough Measures

               So I found another article online concerning what schools do when dining becomes expensive. It was posted on universitybusiness.com in 2008; so it’s not directly relevant with today’s food service problems. Although if history repeats itself we might find ourselves in the same situation once again.

               In 2008 prices of national domestic food went up 5% in just one year. Many contributed this to the rising gas prices, since this plays a big role in food prices. Consequently university dining services were hit pretty hard by this. Many schools implemented many small cost-cutting technics; some of which to the students’ displeasure.

Harvard had to slice tomatoes in place of cherry tomatoes and avoid using the more expensive chicken breasts. It wasn’t just in Massachusetts either, Louisiana State University decided to make pizza dough in-house and offer simpler meals like pasta in order to avoid passing on the costs to the students. Despite these measure the price of meal plans went up 7% from the previous year. Many of these kinds of tactics seem unfruitful. Is the students’ dissatisfaction really worth the small amount of gain acquired?

Other universities like the University of Massachusetts are cutting down on the portion size. This I’m sure garnered quite a bit of student opposition. They also planned on making their cooking process more efficient by digitally analyzing their dining services to eliminate waste and increasing the amount of customers served. I’m not sure whether trying to streamline the dining services would be worth it in the end, but it’s worth a try.

They even said that colleges with private contracts were trying to renegotiate their contracts with their food service provider, because of the rise in food costs. This should worry a university when costs go up, because much of the bill is picked up by the university in these cases. Although food service companies are not immune from the rise in costs either.

 Herman, Michelle. "Dining Halls Feel Squeeze From Soaring Food Prices." University Business 11.8 (2008): 12. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Oct. 2014.

Nothing Common About This Coffee Shop

               Probably the most recent restaurant to open up on campus is the Common Grounds below Champions Court 1. At first I was thinking this was just a coffee place like Starbucks or another average coffee house. Then the other day a friend mentioned that he really liked their milkshakes, and as we started talking, I figured out that it was so much more than a coffee place. Therefore I just had to try it for myself.

               So today I went to Common Grounds to eat lunch. The first thing I noticed was the surprising lack of a long line to order. This is kind of strange, especially on a college campus, most if not all of the other places to eat on campus have dreadfully long lines just to get your order into the system. Then I got a look at their menu, to discover many more lunch options than I had expected from a coffee shop. From the looks of it Panini’s were their specialty but they had sandwiches and other items as well.

               So I’m not a huge coffee fan so I didn’t look at their coffee menu in great detail, but it looked like they had a pretty large selection of specialty drinks. What I did order was a milkshake, but I looked over the flavor options and saw that they were mostly fruity flavors. When I got my “milkshake” my suspicion was confirmed; it wasn’t a milkshake as much as it was a smoothie. Then I began to wait for my food and waited and waited. It took quite while for them to make my sandwich. It was mostly likely from the speed they took orders that they built up. I eventually got my food and it was good, but by the time I got it my milkshake/smoothie was halfway gone.

 http://uky.campusdish.com/Locations/CommonGrounds.aspx

Eat like an Engineer

               So the other day I decided to try out a new place on campus called Rising Roll Gourmet. I had heard good things about it, so I had to discover these things for myself. It’s located in the Ralph G. Anderson building within the Engineering quadrangle. Most of the engineering majors have already been, but it seems like it’s a pretty well-kept secret within the engineering community.

               So like most, if not all, of the on-campus eateries its line gets pretty long around mealtimes. This is normal and well worth the wait. While I was standing in this line I noticed that they have a sign with a newspaper article on it. This article rated the top sandwich shops in the US. Believe it or not the Rising Roll Gourmet location in Atlanta was riding on top at number 1. This was surprising because I had never heard of this chain until I arrived on campus.

               Then I took a look at their menu. It had a plethora of hot and cold sandwiches, wraps, and soup. Reading some of the ingredients, I quickly realized this was no run of the mill sandwich shop, they had very unique combination of ingredients in their specialty sandwiches. One of the other things they pride themselves on is their fresh ingredients.

               I actually received my food not that much longer after my order was placed. This is very rare among the dining options at UK. Then when I turned to find a seat, I found out the downside to this great place. There aren’t a whole lot of seating options in the commons area. I was going to go outside and sit in the courtyard, but it was kind of a dreary wet day. The commons area is a very popular place; many engineers do their homework here and there is always tutoring going on. Overall I really like Rising Roll, but if their planning on more business they should really expand their seating.

 http://uky.campusdish.com/Locations/RisingRollGourmet.aspx 

To Outsource Or Not To Outsource?

I know I’ve been writing on a lot of articles lately but I am going to write about another one. In an article by Joetta Sack-Min called “The Outsourcing Question” she went over the pros and cons of outsourcing food services on the public school level. Even though there is a difference at the university level, she makes some very good points.

                Reports and studies are very contradictory when it comes to whether or not outsourcing will save money or not. Every school is different and thus has different needs. Those with experience in the financial side of the educational system encourage schools to find companies to meet the schools needs and to have a deep knowledge of the contract before signing it.

                There are some nightmare situations that some schools have found themselves in. A school in Neenah, Wisconsin found out that their contract with Aramark only covered $100,000 worth of debt obtained by the school’s food program. Sadly this was after they had already accumulated $354,000 worth of debt. Much of this was due to the high amount of benefits that the staff retained.

                There is a lot of opposition that goes along with outsourcing as well. The Service Employees International Union is especially opposed to these food service companies. They claim that their hours are cut and the food that the kids are getting is of less portions and less quality than before. The American Federation of Teachers are also getting in on the protest, telling schools that privatizing food services is not the way to go. They claim that these companies often don’t comply with regulations and there’s not much the school can do because of their contract.

                But as in most cases there is a flip side to this coin. There are many school programs that would say that they are very happy with their new business relations with these food service companies. They realize in the current market that the school alone would not be able to supply the quality or options of food without accumulating massive amounts of debt.

 

Sack-Min, Joetta. "The Qutsourcing Question." American School Board

Journal 195.6 (2008): 22-24. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Sept.

2014.