Students Work With HUDS TO Improve Quincy Dining Hall

For Quincy resident David P. Tuttle '02, a sandwich just isn't quite right without rye bread. That creates a problem when he goes to the Quincy House dining hall.

"They're always out of rye bread," Tuttle says. "Half the time when I go to make a sandwich, it's not there."

And that's not Quincy's only problem.

In November, Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) electronically surveyed more than 1,400 undergraduates to get feedback about their service and food.

When HUDS compiled the results, Quincy dining hall came out on the bottom.

On a scale of 1 to 5--where 1 is the best score--Quincy received an average score of 2.72 for overall dining experience--almost half a point worse than the 2.24 mean for all dining halls.

"Quincy--while it performed well--performed below the mean for all the other houses. We saw the most opportunities there," Associate Director of Residential Dining Rosemary McGahey says.

In a number of distinct categories, including dining hall appearance, food quality and food appearance, Quincy needed help.

In order to better understand the raw data, HUDS decided to go directly to the source--students. Enticing students with a reward of $25 in Crimson Cash, they convened a focus group last Wednesday.

The meeting was broken into three 30-minute discussion sections-- appearance of the serving and dining areas, appearance and taste of food and the the availability of food. The students presented complaints to McGahey and Quincy House Dining Hall Manager Mark Petrino as Assistant Director of Marketing & Communications Alix McNitt took 16 and a half pages of notes on a giant easel.

And Tuttle says things have already begun to change.

"I think the meeting went really well," Tuttle says. "Since then

there's been rye bread when I went to make a sandwich."

And the students of Quincy hope the bread selection is only the beginning.

High Occupancy Lane

Nothing bugs students more than the long lines in the servery.

"You might have to wait 10 minutes, which in the scheme of thing is pretty long," says Mark E. Lee '01-'02 says, chair of the Quincy House Committee. "There is a lot of traffic."

With only one side of the servery open frequently, it is common to see people standing all the way down the stairs into the front entry to Quincy while waiting for their chance to get their trays.

McGahey says they need to close one of the lines at times, so that the food items will not sit out too long.

But even with these precautions, Quincy residents still say many dishes have a tendency to cool quickly.

"I think it's unfortunate that they can't kep the food warm," Jennifer L. Chu '01 says. "Nothing tastes fresh. Everything feels like it was prepared four hours ahead of time."

HUDS has developed a solution to solve the problems of both line closures and stale food.

"We proposed to the focus group that rather than having food in full sized pans we're going to have smaller pans with smaller quantities," McGahey says. "But both lines will be open--not at the very beginning of each meal--but after that each line will be open."

Another major traffic flow problem is the placement of the beverage

machines in the corner of the L-shaped food lines.

The position of the soda and juice machine causes the entire food line, especially when there is just one, to get log-jammed. But plumbing and electrical rewiring concerns may make it difficult to change the layout of the ill-placed beverage machines.

"Should we fix that? Sure. It's a no-brainer," McGahey says. "But can we physically? I don't know. The place is made largely out of

concrete, and we don't know if we can drill there."

The Tip of the Iceberg Lettuce

Some students are worried that once they get their food, though, they won't want it.

"Frankly, I don't eat here very often because its pretty disgusting," Chu says.

And Chu is just one of several Quincy residents who often decide to skip dining hall meals for a culinary respite somewhere--anywhere--else in the Square.

Michael T. Sha '02 only eats five out of 15 meals a week in the

House.

The quality of the dining hall even causes some complications in love lives.

"I have to coerce my girlfriend into eating here," says Nicholas C. Murphy '02. "She'll come, but I have to beg."

It's the minor details that cause the overall experience to be subpar, Brian R. Walsh '02 says.

"Quincy is the type of dining hall that will serve mashed potatoes without the gravy," Walsh says.

The salad bar is a breeding ground for student complaints.

"Sometimes the leaves of the salad are brown," Claire S. Sulmers '03 says.

"A lot of students wanted better variety of lettuce. They prefer

romaine and spinach lettuce and right now it's on and off. Usually, we just have the standard lettuce in the bag--iceberg lettuce with chopped-up carrots and turnips. That has about zero nutrition," says Publicity Chair for the Quincy House Committee Andrew P. Nikonchuck '02, who attended the focus group.

The focus group also complained that the salad dressing is unlabeled and that the selection is not wide enough.

In addition to food-related problems, the napkin holders are a source of frustration for Nikonchuk, who is also a Crimson editor.

"They're always so overstuffed that they're about to burst. You need to pull really hard and then they pop out all over you," he says. "The napkins just explode, you know. That's just not cool."

A Change Will Do You Good

With fantastic turnaround since last Wednesday's discussion, a number of changes have already been implemented.

After the focus group complained that they had to wait in the main servery area even if they only wanted salad, HUDS has decided to make silverware and dishes available at the salad bar by transferring an extra silverware and tray holder from Annenberg to the Quincy dining hall.

Responding to the focus group's concerns that the pasta is in the main servery while the pasta sauce is in the dining area, HUDS immediately purchased two soup crocks for the pasta that will be placed near the soup and pasta sauces.

At the focus group, Sha complained about the fruit selection.

"You can only eat so many apples, oranges and bananas," he says. "Pears, melons, grapes would be nice and maybe some citrus fruits, too."

Yesterday in Quincy, a basket of kiwis was placed next to the more run-of-the-mill fruits. Several students also noted the newly labelled salad dressing containers and new varieties of lettuce.

"People are already talking about it at the dinner table," Nikonchuk says. "They're happy. How can you not be happy with romaine lettuce. How can you not be happy with good lettuce?"

Smith says he believes that news about the improvements will spread around the House soon.

"I don't know if everyone has noticed yet, but those of us at the

focus group definitely have," he says. "I'm sure the buzz will get out soon."

Focus On The Future

HUDS adminstrators are so pleased with the results of this pilot focus group in Quincy that they hope to extend the focus groups to other Houses in the near future.

The emphasis on direct communication is part of a larger effort to improve student satisfaction in the the dining halls.

"I don't know when, but it is extremely likely that we will be doing this in our other dining halls," McNitt says.

And focus groups are not the only way that HUDS is trying to improve the dining experience for undergraduates. Dining hall

renovations in all of the Houses will continue over the next decade and remain a major component of HUDS's plan to increase student

satisfaction.

"The renovations are a critical piece to elevating the quality and freshness of the food in dining halls," McNitt says.

She adds that the November electronic survey confirms that students are more satisfied with Eliot, Kirkland, Winthrop and Lowell--the renovated dining halls.

"In the renovated ones, the graph patterns are shot to hell--they just go kaflooey," she says.

The new dining halls make food in smaller batches, which keeps the food fresher. They also utilize induction cookers, which use magnets to move the molecules within the pans and prevent heat from escaping into space.

"They allow you to cook in front of students and show off your skills," says Angelo Dalla Santa, manager of Winthrop and Lowell Dining

Halls.

Winthrop is also home to a pizza impinger, which can cook a whole pizza in only six minutes. Dalla Santa says that the pizza is a big hit with hungry Winthrop residents.

"Students don't want anybody else to know about it," he says. "They love having that extra option, especially if they're in a hurry.

They can just grab a slice or two on the run."

A new HUDS initiative on the horizon is a proposed preference survey to be distributed to all undergraduates.

Although the idea is still in development, McGahey says they hope to ask students to rank their favorite cereals, sodas, juices and salad dressings so that they can decide what to offer based on their poularity.

"Some people say, 'Please have grapefruit juice everyday,' but actually grapefruit is our least popular juice," McGahey says. "We would never conisder taking away Coke and orange juice. But we might take All-Bran off if students say that they need Golden Grahams."

HUDS has already completed a preliminary draft of the survey, and is currently verifying that all the products on the survey are available from suppliers. McGahey says they hope to have the survey available sometime before spring break.

Although HUDS has taken several steps to improve the areas

pinpointed in November's survey, HUDS is still committed to doing even more to heighten the quality of the undergraduate dining experience. As McGahey says, the HUDS philosophy is simple--"Good isn't good enough."

The second Quincy House focus group will be held Thursday evening.