News
Amid Boston Overdose Crisis, a Pair of Harvard Students Are Bringing Narcan to the Red Line
News
At First Cambridge City Council Election Forum, Candidates Clash Over Building Emissions
News
Harvard’s Updated Sustainability Plan Garners Optimistic Responses from Student Climate Activists
News
‘Sunroof’ Singer Nicky Youre Lights Up Harvard Yard at Crimson Jam
News
‘The Architect of the Whole Plan’: Harvard Law Graduate Ken Chesebro’s Path to Jan. 6
The end of the college year offers a good opportunity for commending the dining hall management on their success in keeping the board rate at its former level, while continuing to buy the same quality food as last year, and while tuition and rent have been raised. Justified complaints, aggravated by the compulsory 21-meal contract, detract from the major accomplishment of serving food cheaply, however.
A comprehensive recommendation for improvement of the quality of service and food in college dining halls should discuss all the little grievances which arise daily and propose, specific solutions. Some of the most common complaints, however, can be listed here. Cold food and overcooked vegetables result from the failure to synchronize the demand for the food in the lines and the supply from the kitchens. Serving methods are subject to question throughout the University. Plastic trays and cups are impossible to heat, and, therefore, cannot keep food warm. Although it is true that the cost of chinaware would be prohibitive, there is a possibility that the use of china cups would be feasible. The enormous wastage, largest at the Union, results generally from extravagant serving. An attitude has come to be accepted of eating only the desired amount from the heap on the tray, and casually throwing the rest away.
The extent to which these conditions exist tends to vary among the different dining halls, depending on the number of students each one serves. Unquestionably the Union is the worst in every respect with Eliot, Kirkland, Lowell, Winthrop, and Leverett Houses, served by the College kitchen, second. Since all the food is purchased by one office, and the quality does not differ from place to place, the fault would appear to lie in the degree of efficiency in the preparation of the food.
The task of increasing this efficiency is clearly one for experts. Occasional investigations by the Council have furnished very little in the way of constructive advice. Last January the suggestion for hiring a firm of management consultants to investigate the University dining halls was made to the Council. No action has been taken, however, in spite of the statement by a firm after a brief survey that the conditions could be improved at a saving in cost.
The dining hall system is operated by a staff whose members, in most cases, have worked their way to the top after many years' service, and the investigation of their methods by an outside efficiency expert would obviously not be hailed with joy. However, such an investigation should not be considered as deprecatory to their considerable achievements. It should be realized that most of them have been trained in the pre-war system of individual waitress service, and the present cafeteria system is completely different. It is a system for which they were not trained, and consequently the change has not been adequately carried out.
Rather than continuing, therefore, on the piecemeal method of improvement as the criticisms pick out one item on the menu after another, a professional investigation and recommendations should be sought to attack the problem at its root: the lack of efficiency in preparing and serving meals in the so-called temporary cafeteria style.
Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.