I'd like to take this time to give a quick description of the Governors Dorm Complex and its dining hall as a whole. Governors is a a dorm complex on UB's North Campus that is made in 1972 to house all of the UB Honors College and Academy students. Just like any centers on UB's campus that act as a dorm for the students, Governors has a dining center located in the basement of the Dewey section of the complex. This dining center is open Monday through Saturday from 7:00am to 10:30am and then closes for some reason and opens back up from 4:30pm to 7:30PM. Sundays have a slightly varied schedule where it opens at 10:30am through 1:30pm and reopens from 4:30pm to 7:30pm.
The Problem.
Do you see anything strange about the schedule?
Do you see the huge six hour hole between the morning block and the afternoon block of time?
According to the school's website, the dining hall conveniently closes its doors from 10:30am to 4:30pm which denies around 820 students who live at Governors the ability to eat lunch in the complex. That is six hours for which a student can not get a healthy and hardy meal to help them get through the day. The currently scheduling completely cuts lunch out of the equation entirely.Where do they even expect us to eat for lunch? Do they want us to walk a half a mile to the nearest food station at the Student Union? Even when they post the hours of operation, they don't even include the word "lunch". Here is a picture of the hours below:
Every room in Governors is a double so the students pay up to $6,540 for room and board in order to live in the dorm a year as shown here. Apart from the cost of the room and the countless fees UB has to offer, the cost of food also ties into the potential $6,540 the students have to pay. Depending on the amount of meals one asks for, a student may pay either, $2,250 or $2,385 in order to have a enough meal credits to have a solid diet each day. That is like a down payment on a nice car, just for food. For paying that much of their hard earned money, a student should have the right to eat in their dining hall at any time during the day, let alone during lunch time. If a student is unable to be flexible around the flawed schedule of the Governors Dining Hall, they might miss an opportunity to eat and thus stay hungry for an extended period of time. Recent research provides compelling evidence that undernutrition impacts the behavior of children, their school performance, and their overall cognitive development (Tufts University Statement, 1998). This states that if a child is not fed properly, school performance may suffer.This problem can be solved with a simple solution.
The Solution.
Do not close the dining hall from 10:30 am to 4:30pm and just keep it open for that period for anyone who wants to use a meal credit to get lunch. This allows students six extra hours in which they can get food to satisfy their appetites during their hectic day of school.
If the dining hall extended its hours to the new schedule shown above more students who dorm at the Governors complex would decide to eat at Governors during lunch time rather than go to the Student Union or make their own food. It is much easier and quicker for a person to walk to the Dewey building of Governors from Governors itself than to walk close to a mile to the next place to eat food, which is the Student Union. Also it is more likely for a student to use a meal plan credit on a large prepared meal than to make food for themselves. Plus, the Governors Dining Hall is a buffet-style eatery unlike most of the food shops in the Student Union where only a set number of items can be bought, so students can eat as much as they want for one the price of one meal credit. If the the dining hall was open during lunch time, it would allow the students to use their meal credits more effectively during that 10:30am to 4:30pm period. These are two factors that will cause more students that dorm in Governors to stay and eat the dining hall food. Yes, it is true that the campus would have to spend a little more money to hire more individuals to work. Say if the dining hall needed to hire ten more workers to work the six hour gap for a full week, that is 420 hours that are being used for work. If each worker is getting paid minimum wage at $7.25 then the amount of money the University needs to fork over is $3,024 a week.
Lastly, the University's goal is to provide a student will tools in order for them to succeed with a valuable education, not create obstacles that they have to work around as hinted in a part of the school's mission statement, "At the University at Buffalo, we view the tripartite mission of the public university – research, education, and public service – not as separate or discrete actions, but as interdependent activities continually informing and enriching each other." By having this clear mistake in the scheduling, UB is going against one of the three goals it displays, public service. UB is providing inadequate service to the public of Governors by setting up the hours this way. Between the creation of both working opportunities and eating opportunities for the student body, this new solution will be much more effective then the current establishment.
Help out.
Help solve the problem or provide a new solution by getting involved and write to the president of University at Buffalo, Satish Trapathi, at his email which is president@buffalo.edu or write a letter to Capen Hall University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260. Together we can fix the flaw of the Governors Dining Hall Scheduling.
