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Christopher Paul, Retriever Staff Writer, Volume 39, Issue 19, unpublished Feburary March 1, 2005
UMBC provides a unique problem as far as alternative food sources. Due to inadequate parking facilities, students who drive are reluctant to leave the university to forage for food in Catonsville or Arbutus. In addition, it’s a 20 minute walk one way regardless of which town one chooses, so it is not likely that one would walk off campus in search of food.
S.U.N.Y Farmingdale, Long Island, New York is also a state run school, a commuter school and has a sprawling suburban campus similar to UMBC. Farmingdale has only a dining hall and a coffee/sandwich shop on campus as food sources. Farmingdale was founded in 1912 and the designers of the campus placed the dining hall in the center of the campus so it is easily accessible from the entire campus and not next to the residence halls as UMBC’s designers chose. In addition, there is adequate parking so one can leave the campus and come back in 40 minutes to find another adequate parking space. In addition, on both ends of the campus there are alternative restaurants such as pizza and fast food within a 10 minute walk. Food is available through a food plan or pay as you go cash option. Students are also encouraged to apply for food preparation positions and are hired by the state.
S.U.N.Y Nassau Community College, Long Island, New York, is another state run commuter school, established in 1959, is located within a no longer used military air field, once named Mitchel Field. The area is so large it is home for the Nassau Coliseum, supports a business park, and a hotel complex. Due to the size of the old airfield there is no possibility of a walk out to alternative food sources. Nassau Community College delegates areas central to all the college buildings and allows fast food restaurants to handle the food service needs of the college. Once again, these merchants were open to hiring and encouraged college students to apply.
Drexel University, a private university, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the center of University City next to University of Pennsylvania. Drexel was founded in 1890 and has some unique aspects for food services. Food services could be purchased on meal plans or cash within the dining hall which again was at the center of the campus. What was unique about Drexel is that the university blocked off a dead end street in front of its administration building and allowed coffee truck vendors to sell their wares. These coffee trucks were reminiscent of a time long gone by out of the 1940’s. The trucks had cooking grills, cold storage, and cleaning facilities for food preparation and offered a huge variety of food including Chinese food. If this wasn’t sufficient, one could walk just a few blocks to find a pizza place, a convenience store, fast food, or a full blown restaurant providing food within everyone’s budget.
The problem here at UMBC is that once you’re here, you’re here and there is nowhere else to go. Wood Food Service is aware of this and this is why they can charge the prices they do.
There are four other problems that have not been considered by the UMBC community. Now knowing some of the truth as to why Wood Food Service Management won the new contract, this is pure speculation of course, but is based on known facts.
First, let’s consider the fact that Wood Food Service has a $1.5 million investment in the food services here at UMBC. Obviously, this is covering all the equipment for food service such as cleaning facilities, refrigeration, beverage dispensers, cooking facilities and everything else required for food prep, this is a large vested interest. Retirement age for such equipment is unknown, but may extend beyond the 10 year period when new vendors may apply with their proposals. Therefore considering this Wood Food Services has a tremendous need to protect its investment at the university placing it in a position where it will practically bend over backward in order not to loose the contract.
Secondly, who is to say that within the UMBC administrative team there is not a personal vested interest in Wood Food Services? Who is to say that the UMBC administrators who drew up and modified the contract do not have extended family holding jobs within the Wood Food Services Management firm? I’m speaking about people who work at the lower level and mid level within Wood Food Services, who like working on this campus and without the contract would end up working somewhere else with Wood in less favorable surroundings other than UMBC, and that the UMBC administrators were simply taking care of their extended family?
Thirdly, the contract says that new bids only come up every ten years and major changes are allowed only after five years. Marilyn Demorest, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at UMBC in Reshma Desai’s article, “Trying to Graduate in Four Years? It’s much easier said than done,” back in November 18, 2003, said, ‘graduating in six years is a more common scenario.’ Obviously, there are very few students, if any, who are here ten years pursuing a degree and most leave between five and six years. Therefore administration bargains on the fact that most likely students will have graduated within five to six years and once you’ve graduated, you’re not going to care what the food is like on campus. It’s a matter of time being on UMBC’s administration’s side or a battle of attrition. Once we leave it becomes the new student’s headache. One could also consider it the “revolving door” policy a factor that most service industries rely on. Most students should be able to relate to this considering that service jobs are the type of jobs most UMBC students hold. UMBC’s administration counts on organizations such as FAT as not being able to effect change because new students entering the organization will not understand the problem as well as the old students who will eventually graduate.
Lastly, UMBC is a commuter university. Commuter universities have notoriously low student involvement, UMBC representing the norm and not the exception. Commuter students are more concerned with their grades, graduating, and coming up with money for the next semester’s tuition, therefore commuter students have less time to devote to university extra-curricula activities. This is another fact that the decision makers on the UMBC administrative team also take into consideration. The administrative team will base their decisions on what is best for the university and not what is best for the consumer, the UMBC student. Remember, you’re not just a student here, you’re a consumer. You’re purchasing an education and it’s one of the largest investments some of us will ever make. Viewing the problem as a consumer places the student body in a very different position. In order to effect change, one must come from the position of power as a consumer.
Change could be made but it will take strong backing and support from the student community for an organization such as FAT and also viewing the problem from the consumer view. If you don’t like the service, the prices, options, or when food is served come up with alternative proposals, and also hit them where it hurts; their pocketbook. Stage a day or several days when students refuse to buy food from Wood Food Services, bring your own food for a few days, and for those who can’t leave campus, carpool and leave to eat. Wood Food Services will get the message real quick if we all got together and stopped spending our money there.
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