With COVID-19 still dominating headlines and inundating us with articles like these, we thought we’d reflect on our interviews from before campus openings and check back in with some friends in C&U foodservice to see how they are doing, whether or not they were confronted with unexpected challenges, and what their biggest “brag moment” has been so far.
Where have you had to pivot the most from your pre-opening plans to now?
Anthony Coschignano is the Assistant Vice President for Auxiliary Services at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, PA: “To be honest, we have not really had to pivot from what we planned. Our plan has been working successfully. I would say we have had to think about some of the changes to our programming on our system from what we thought we would do from the start. Other than that, the biggest hurdle was no matter how much we communicated, trained, and walked through the process, this was new to staff and students and it just takes time for things to settle in. But they did so rather quickly.”
Crista Martin is the Director for Strategic Initiatives & Communications for Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) in Cambridge, MA: “For HUDS, the biggest ‘lift,’ or pivot, has been getting our staff – who are not regular technology users – on board with the daily systems we're using for health attestation and testing. The University is using detailed systems and dashboards to ensure compliance, but they rely on regular use of apps or systems like secure email addresses and logins with dual authentication. For our managers, that meant becoming on-site tech support in many cases, and they've done so to great effect. We continue to ‘habituate’ all these new tools and technologies, but our team recognizes how integral they are to keeping our community safe and healthy!”
Carolina Amero is the Senior Director of Auxiliary Services for Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA: “Our biggest surprise was about students wanting to sit in dining facilities even less than what we had already planned for before the beginning of the semester. We’re also in the middle of construction on our new Campus Center, so there is some temporary dining. Campus is not very busy during the day, but students come out for dinner which led to long lines outside our dining halls during the first week of the semester. However, we adjusted our processes and partnered with the SGA to help with line management and educate students about grab & go options that helped avoid long lines. We have fewer local food trucks than last fall since there’s less business during the day. We’ve also added more dining dollars to the first-year meal plans to make up for the shorter semester (fewer meal service days) which also helps students with convenience and quick options. The adjustment of staffing, hours and offerings has been the biggest change, since we’re offering more grab-and-go right now. The first week or two we were short-staffed because public transport had limited service, so we saw an increase in labor costs as we had to rely on more temporary labor. We changed from Grub Hub to the Transact mobile ordering app, which was also used by Housing for move-in reservations. For this fall, we have eliminated the fee normally charged for mobile ordering transactions, and have also started using the app for appointments for the ID card office. And we’re cashless now, which everyone likes.”
Debra Hydock is the Associate Director of Dining Services at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA: “Classes began on Monday, August 17, with everyone on campus and was ‘de-densified’ two weeks ago. We now have just the First Year class and approximately 400 upper-class students in the residential cohort. The Dining plan was designed to accommodate long lines due to social distancing requirements and for the 75% reduction in seating across all venues. Several points of service were added and by the second week, adjustments were made to condense some of the locations and some were closed completely by the third week. COVID-19 testing impacted the plan because there was a rise in positive and quarantined cases. This caused an all-campus quarantine to go into effect, shutting down indoor seating completely. The campus was de-densified by the third week of classes, leaving approximately 900 students in residence. Indoor seating, enhanced customization and the use of reusable dishes returned on Wednesday, September 16, well past the date in the initial plan. A majority of students, however, are still carrying-out from the Dining Center rather than choosing to dine-in. The beautiful weather may be a factor as well as First Year students only know carry-out. We are strategizing ways to entice students to choose the dine-in option.”
Rahul Shrivastav is the Executive Director of IU Dining at Indiana University in multiple cities throughout Indiana: “We had to close academic cafes because of no traffic. Since classes are mostly online, our retail cafes saw no business we had to close them, which took collaboration with the building staff and academic staff. We had to market our healthy foods more, since the salad bars were gone. Although our top ten sell list consists of the word ‘crispy,’ we had to put out our marketing efforts on the healthy items. We reformed the service at quarantine and isolation; we had to reform our delivery process at QnI, it was a case of high numbers too fast.”
What has been your team’s biggest brag moment since re-opening?
Anthony Coschignano, Swarthmore College: “That we accomplished what we set out and planned to do: provide an experience that would give students quality and variety of options, and at the end of day ensure their needs of being fed have been met.”
Crista Martin, Harvard University: “Our food and our teamwork! Presently, all food is being prepared and packaged for takeaway and reheating. We also have a limited menu because we no longer offer buffet service. And of course every space had to be marked out to ensure social distancing and safe spaces. This means virtually everything our team came back to is different than it was before. They've tackled it, embraced it, and they're producing meals that are delicious, fresh, good-looking, fun and diverse. Oh, and healthy! We're taking it step by step, looking for opportunities to adjust based on feedback. Our chefs are making daily specials to provide some variety and surprise! But our students are raving and our team is excited to come to work every day.”
Carolina Amero, Georgia Tech: “Our customer satisfaction survey has gotten a great response from students; they understand why dining has to have reduced hours of operation at some locations and some limited variety for this semester.”
Debra Hydock, Gettysburg College: “Approximately 70 positive cases and almost 150 quarantine cases in less than a two-week period created the need to house students in off-campus locations. Since students could not leave these locations, Dining delivered meals to them on a daily basis. The students could order from a wide variety of items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It took an army to package and deliver individual meals daily but the plan was solid and worked extremely well.”
Rahul Shrivastav, Indiana University: “Our team is proud of the fact that they changed the entire dining delivery in 2 months to keep our customers safe, and delivered on the promise and our mission statement. I am extremely proud of the resilience this team has portrayed through this crisis.”
A huge thanks to Anthony, Crista, Carolina, Debra and Rahul for giving us a peek into the changes happening in their programs! For those of you who are also in College and University foodservice, we’d love to hear from you, too! What aspects of the pandemic have caused you to pivot the most? Any great advice that has proven successful for you?