More Problems in Serving the People

Although 5600 undergraduates will play $1000 each for board this year--an increase of $80 per person from the 1973-74 rates--it is clear that they will not get more for their money. Hopefully, officials at the Food Services Department say, they will not get less.

This 9 per cent board hike--representing an increase in the Food Services Department's undergraduate budget to $6.5 million--should absorb the rising food costs, according to Frank J. Weissbecker, director of food services. "If all goes well," Weissbecker said last week, "the quality and the quantity of the food will not be sacrificed."

But Weissbecker concedes that the game of food-price forecasting can often be "imprecise" and that the effects of the mid-Western drought and Hurricane Carmen may well be "very significant."

Last year it was mostly meat, this year it will be almost everything that will go up, Weissbecker predicts. Bakery products, preblanched items, staple crops and vegetables are all twice as expensive as they were two years ago--and all indications are that this upward trend will continue at a rate of about 14 per cent a year.

Officials at the food services are now busily assessing how they will handle the food-stuffs inflation without making drastic changes in the menu. But last year's policy of cutting costs through the introduction of more sandwich luncheons, the use of soya protein in various dishes (such as chicken a la king where it can be disguised), and the dispensing of fresh fruit on request only, is sure to continue, Weissbecker says. And the raisins, removed last year from the dining rooms to the dismay of Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates will just as certainly not be returning.

But, according to Weissbecker, there are many other efforts being made to stabilize costs. For example, the food service purchasing division has already bought large quantities of items that it anticipates will be in short supply, and has moved to reduce transportation costs by making more direct pick-ups. Furthermore, Weissbecker says, the Food Services Department and the Mass Hall administration are considering a consolidation of undergraduate units for the breakfast period since, according to Weissbecker's figures, only 40 to 50 per cent of all undergraduates attend this meal.

The closing of the Freshman Union on the weekends has saved approximately $120,000 to $150,000 a year, Weissbecker says. But this money-saving ploy has had an overcrowding effect on the River Houses--particularly Adams and Quincy. Often, upperclassmen find themselves having to eat Sunday brunch on the dining room floor because freshmen do not go to the House to which they are assigned for weekend meals, especially those who dislike the walk to the Quadrangle Houses.

For this reason, the Mass Hall administration is considering reopening the Freshmen Union on the weekends. "We have to continue to cut costs, but perhaps there is a way to open the Union anyway," Stephen S.J. Hall, vice president for administration, said last week.

Hall suggests "the way" may be to offer students a different kind of menu--maybe a grill-type operation catering to hamburger and french-fry lovers. "It would cost some money," Hall says, "but not what the Union operation used to cost."

If the Freshman Union is reopened on the weekends, it is likely that it would cost each student approximately $27 more per year for a meal contract, according to Hall's Management Plan, a massive guide to administrative services issued to the University's management personnel.

The plan also lists at least three other external factors that may affect future undergraduate board rates:

* "Changes in the House System could lead to a consolidation of Food Services." Weissbecker explains that if students were given an alternative to the 21 meal board contract--say, for example, 14 meals per week--then there would be no need to keep 13 undergraduate dining halls open for each meal.

* "Management decisions based on 'social responsibility' and/or political pressure rather than net cost operational effectiveness" could bring the price of meals up. Weissbecker says the University's current policy to buy Union products, for example, could drive up the board rate.

* "The Massachusetts Old Age Tax on the undergraduate board contract could impact the board rate by $155,000 or $27 per student." This newly instituted tax is currently being studied by Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University.

But however these "external factors" may affect board contracts on the future, this year will see the now annual appeal to students to bear some of the responsibility for keeping costs low:

"There are three things that you can do which will be helpful," Weissbecker will write to undergraduates with board contracts, "assist us in eliminating waste by taking only what you can eat; please do not take food from the dining rooms; remember that unauthorized guests or meals taken dilute the value you receive from your board fee." (Weissbecker claims that uninvited guests who do not pay for their meals are paid for directly by the students.)

Whatever happens with price rises this year, Hall is confident that Harvard's "food service team" will be able to deal with them effectively. "Frank Weissbecker is an extremely talented and dedicated institutional food man," Hall says. "His and my primary emphasis is on the product--what goes out to the kids. Last year we had an excellent year--we just about broke even. This year it will be better."

"The food will never be like what mother cooks, but it's certainly pallatable," Hall says reassuringly.

Hall, a former vice president of the Sheraton Hotels, a subsidiary of International Telephone and Telegraph, is obsessed, in his own words, with "trying to please the customer." "It's not what we want that counts; it's what you want," Hall says.

And if the management approach to running a business is Hall's forte, then it is easy to see why he is so impressed with his "food services team." For Weissbecker and Benjamin Walcott, associate director of food services, say efficiency is the key to making the food services work. They say that they see the department, comprised of over 800 people, as one unit that works together and makes decisions together. Weissbecker claims that "If I am needed to assist in the kitchen then I will do it."

But, needless to say, the employees who work for the food services do not all work in the air conditioned offices of 399 Harvard Street, and only a few of them are Corporation appointees. Only 5 per cent of the employees are termed "administrative staff." The overwhelming majority are non-administrative full-time hourly employees, part-time hourly employees, and Harvard students.

Most of these employees work under conditions very different from those of their bosses. The non-administrative 95 per cent work in the kitchens of undergraduate and graduate eating facilities: the 13 undergraduate Houses, the Freshmen Union, Kresge Hall at the Business School, the Harkness Commons at the Law School, Vanderbilt Hall at the Medical School, and others.

The Food Services Department graduate school budget alone is up to about $2.5 million for fiscal 1974-75, bringing the total budget to around $9 million, (the undergraduate budget being $6.5 million).

Of this, 43 per cent--or approximately $3 million--will be spent in purchasing. Weissbecker says that the buying of food by the purchasing division is done on an annual competitive bidding system. After contracts are made, two buyers go directly to the wholesale markets to inspect the products of the 130 vendors from which the department has agreed to buy. When the buyer give his stamp of approval, the food is delivered to the food service areas where it is prepared and served.

Some students would dispute that the meals they are served represent "the utmost in excellent food"--the goal set by the food services in Hall's administrative handbook. And given the continuing inflation with which every household must contend, students expecting this year's $80 board hike to improve the quality of their meals should probably expect to be disappointed.