By Kit Weber, Photo Editor
The beginning of a new semester can be rough, but it can be even more rough with a new food service provider.
AVI Foodsystems joined the campus community in May and has brought more hours and no declining point system. Students at Ohio Wesleyan now have anytime dining, which means food at the Smith Hall cafeteria all day, any day and the Marketplace in the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center is open from morning to evening.
But with change comes confusion.
Burnt coffee, pink meat, mislabeled food and more have left some students reconsidering their dining expectations.
Coffee is a staple of the college student diet. But Sunday morning left a friend saying one of the coffee choices was so watery that it looked like tea, while another friend said it was so burnt that no creamer could change its color.
Undercooked food has left some hanging too. My roommate had once cut into the chicken with a pink center and ultimately refused to eat it. When I scooped up some unusually hard rice, I had to stop too.
If you chose the smallest meal plan, there is no dining dollars unless you put money out-of-pocket on your card. This means no Merrick, T-store, or the Science Café without using personal money.
Even though anytime dining at Smith and the Marketplace are unlimited swipes, it does not always mean they are my first food choice.
This change is new and will naturally have some obstacles until things settle. I think some issues have easy solutions, such as simply adding more dining dollars to each meal plan, including the lowest. Even on the medium plan, I do not see myself having enough dining dollars to get me through the semester.
When it comes to the food, attention and communication would both help. Talk with students and figure out what dishes could be improved or added. Students wanted the T-Store to remain on the residential side of campus instead of moving to Hamilton-Williams, and it stuck.
Better communication between employees and students will improve the new system together and expectations can be achieved.