Last February, in the wake of dining-related complaints and the possibility of a Bon Appétit-run Pause, student morale surrounding on-campus dining was low. It was during this period that students were first informed of St. Olaf’s next steps: the Dining Advisory Committee.
In an email sent to the student body on Feb. 27, Vice President for Business and Finance and Chief Financial Officer Mike Berthelsen announced, alongside an annual student survey and a search for a third-party consultant, that the Dining Advisory Committee would seek to “create and maintain regular input, transparency, and open communication between students, the College, and Bon Appétit.”
In a following April 3 email, Berthelsen shared a Charge for Committee, including membership roles, purpose, scope, timing, and topics. As the email explained, in the following weeks, Co-Chairs and representatives for the Committee were to be established. The topics they were to address included cost, quality, sustainability, environment, and operations in regards to campus dining.
The Committee, which includes representatives from the Student Government Association (SGA), Interfaith, the Disability Access Committee (DAC), Bon Appétit, the Pause, the Student Life Committee, the Taylor Center, as well as various faculty and staff members, met for the first time on May 7. The meeting was centered around creating a student survey that would properly showcase each concern students may have.
“It really started with us talking about what different areas we’re experiencing with dining, what the issues were…sometimes, not even so much related to or tailored to food, necessarily, but also retaining to cost, price margins, catering,” said Student Life Committee Representative and SGA President Zaria Irving ’25. “It was a lot of conversations of ‘let’s start to lay out what issues students are experiencing, what issues are departments experiencing, what are our root concrete issues of dining.’”
After solidifying the questions, the survey was then sent out on May 14, finally closing on May 31. Over the summer and while the Committee was out of session, the College looked into the topics brought up within the survey. Main concerns included improving accessibility, wait times, and the variety of food options.
“We were wanting to say we shouldn’t do anything for a whole nother year…so we said, well, we should at least start addressing those [concerns from the survey], even if it means we don’t stick with those same solutions forever,” Berthelsen said in an interview with the Olaf Messenger.
Another aspect they considered was the larger incoming class size of 2028 paired with a higher retention rate.
“If we had those concerns about lines before [this year], now, we have an even larger class…We shouldn’t ignore that. We should plan ahead,” Berthelsen said.
When students returned for fall semester, they were greeted with two new dining options: a ramen line open in King’s Dining Room and a Mediterranean bowl option in the Cage, both open 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. In addition to the expanded dining choices, other notable changes installed over the summer include Stav dinner hours extending to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and the Cave’s implementation of a self-service checkout.
“Those were ideas that were quick options that could help, mainly with the congestion and the line issues that we were seeing in Stav,” Irving said. “It was also just a way to give students a maybe faster to-go option, but they didn’t have to use their Flex Dollars or their own money.”
Samuel Browne ’25, DAC Representative for the Committee, still believes there is a lot of work to be done outside of this. He recalls in a meeting someone used the phrase “death by a thousand paper cuts” to describe the dining experience, and the phrase stuck with him. In other words, while he doesn’t define the dining situation as “bad,” he acknowledges there are a lot of little details that many get caught up on.
“Everyone has their few issues that just drive them crazy, and we’re trying to fix as many of those as possible,” Browne said. Donovan Roddy ’25, appointed by the SGA to be Co-Chair of the Committee, found truth in the statement as well.
“There are things that could be better about Stav that when added together, it looks like we’re bleeding. But if we make really simple solutions, we can make it a lot better,” Roddy said.
In order to compile these complaints, along with the survey and the Committee, consultants were hired over the summer.
“We want them to consider so we want [the consultants] to look at the facilities, the layout, the meal plans, satisfaction, communication, and finances,” Berthelsen said.
Berthelsen said that they will look into the survey and previous dining reports, as well conduct personal interviews with people and focus groups. In the end, they will share a prioritized list of changes with the Committee by the end of the semester
“I think the biggest thing is, once we get the feedback from the consultants, that’ll help navigate a lot of those conversations,” Iriving said.
Berthelsen is aware that open conversation is important in the coming months.
“There’s not just one thing that needs attention. There’s an array of concerns, and we are getting an array of solutions to address them, which is why the continued conversation is important,” he said.
