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Inside Virginia Tech’s Self-Operated Dining Program
"They want change, they want variety, they want quality, they want healthy, but they also want convenience sprinkled into it."
That's how Mike Staples, Director of Dining at Virginia Tech, described what today's students expect from campus dining in our latest Thought Leaders in Foodservice conversation with Sojo Alex.
Rebuilding Trust and Modernizing Dining: How Lafayette College Transformed Its Program Through Partnership
Lafayette College, home to roughly 2,700 students in eastern Pennsylvania, faced a familiar challenge: a dining program that had served the campus well for years but was no longer meeting the moment.
George Mason’s Recipe for Modern Campus Dining
George Mason University is the largest university in Virginia, serving 42,000 students through four dining halls and 27 retail locations. Eavan Jennings talked with Jonathan Elwell, CEC, Director of Dining Services at George Mason, about how student expectations have shifted.
Meeting Students Where They Are: A Conversation with Jackson Mathews on the Future of Auxiliary Services
Brendan Evje sat down with Jackson Mathews, AVP of Auxiliary Services at William & Mary to address two questions that sit at the center of nearly every auxiliary services program: how do you improve the student experience, and how do you know if you're actually reaching students in the first place?
Weighing in the Trade-Offs of AI in the Dining Hall
In our latest Thought Leaders in Foodservice conversation, Sojo Alex talked with Brian Muganda from UC Berkeley about where AI is starting to show up in campus dining, from project management and centralized reporting dashboards to (soon) cost of goods, purchasing, and sustainability metrics.
What Makes Students Say Yes to a Meal Plan
At most large public universities, voluntary meal plan participation is an uphill climb. At the University of Florida, Director of Food and Beverage Services Matt Mueller has helped more than double participation in four years, by building a program that earns its place in students' lives.
Let the Students Do the Homework
Occidental College enrolls roughly 2,000 students and runs one a la carte dining hall plus a small retail space with a pizza oven and a grill. There is very little machinery sitting between a student's complaint and the person who can act on it.
How UC Berkeley Is Building a Dining Program That Can Grow With Its Campus
Christopher Henning, Executive Director of Dining at UC Berkeley, joins Sojo Alex to share how he's built a data-driven, rapidly expanding dining program on one of the country's most complex campuses, and what he's learned navigating a master plan, a leadership gap, and a Bay Area labor market all at once.
Flexibility Is the New Efficiency
We asked Garrett DiStefano, Director of Residential & Retail Dining Services at UMass Amherst, a single question: looking at his dining facilities five years from now, what's the one thing that absolutely has to be different? His answer had less to do with new equipment than with how much a single serving station can reasonably be asked to do.
Why Small Campuses Move Faster on Student Feedback
Erik Russell of Occidental College shares how a small campus turns student feedback into real dining solutions, using a student-led working group to build ideas from the bottom up instead of the top down.
Build for the Menu You Haven’t Written Yet
Ask Steve Giardini to describe the University of Michigan's dining operation and the numbers come first. Thirty-one kitchens across the buildings his team operates. More than 500 full-time staff. Another 1,300 to 1,400 students on the payroll.
Why the Next Dining Innovation Isn’t More Space, It’s More Flexibility
Garrett DiStefano of UMass Dining shares why the next five years are about flexibility, not expansion, and how AI is helping the nation's top-ranked dining program learn which menu items actually work.
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