UT community suggests changes to campus dining

A Java City Café in the Memorial Field House, additional fast food restaurants in the Student Union Building and a bigger Starbucks are just a few dining options students want, according to the results of the MarketMATCH survey conducted by Aramark, the University of Toledo’s food service provider.

According to Deborah Tripp, national director for research and planning at Aramark, the company conducted a 16-week study called MarketMATCH by surveying “all types of students,” faculty members and staff to see what changes they wanted to see in campus dining options. According to a press release from Aramark, 29 “key administrators and student organization representatives” were also interviewed during the process to “understand the current perceptions and attitudes about dining services on campus.”

When all the data was collected, the university was divided into different “geographies,” or areas of campus, which received different suggestions from students.

According to the press release, a suggestion from the College of Business Administration was to build a “small grab-and-go location where students, faculty and staff can get snacks and light meals during all [parts of the]day.”

Other suggestions include an Extreme Pita on the Health Science Campus, a Java City in the Memorial Field House, expanding the Starbucks in the Student Union and a Provisions on Demand Market on the Engineering Campus.

Suggestions for the Student Union Building Cafeteria included “increasing speed of service in the current spaces and additional venues that will help handle the high traffic volume in [the]building, especially at lunch.”

“We noticed how much traffic there was and, based on growth, we needed to work to relieve some of the pressure in the Student Union at lunch,” Tripp said.

Other recommendations from the survey results include possibly closing the Horton International House Dining Hall if a second Fresh Food Market can be placed in the Student Union and closing Einstein Brothers Bagels and replacing it with a POD Market.

According to the press release, students and community members surveyed also want the dining hall in Ottawa Hall East to be expanded to “deal with the crowds.”

According to David Wahr, interim director of auxiliary services, the survey suggestions will likely take three to five years to implement.

Wahr said the surveying was done at no cost to UT, but the suggestions resulting from the survey will be long-term projects because they will be costly to the university.

Tripp said the next step in the process is evaluating all the student and community recommendations and deciding which ones the majority of the population wants most.

According to Wahr, there will be a series of forums for students, faculty and staff to voice their opinions about the suggestions made.

“[The forums] are the first in sharing the recommendations and getting feedback from the people,” said Vice President of Student Affairs Kaye Patten Wallace.

Patten Wallace said her role throughout the rest of the MarketMATCH process will be to make sure the students are well informed and their needs will be met.

“My job is to advocate to make sure the students’ voice and the students’ needs are met. So as we go through this process I want to make sure that we’ve got enough information, and got enough student feedback,” she said.

According to Patten Wallace, the MarketMATCH representatives will be present at the Student Advisory Board meeting on Friday, which will allow student groups present to relay information to members in their organizations.

“We’re actually going to have the MarketMATCH folks come and present to that group and the beauty of that is that they go back and share that with the other members of their organization. It’s an opportunity to broaden the information going out as well the input coming back,” she said.

Patten Wallace said the MarketMATCH survey is in accordance with UT’s strategic plan.

“MarketMATCH is essentially a strategic plan of our dining services,” she said. “So I think it’s very complimentary, I think it’s a way to make sure it’s a strategic way of going about to make sure our needs are being met and [students’] voices are being heard.”