Dining Services opened 251 North, the North Campus Snack ‘N Shop and extended the hours of the Commons Shop on Monday despite the university closing because of the snow.
“We have a minimum guarantee so no matter how bad the weather gets, the students who live in on-campus housing will be comfortable knowing that they will be fed,” said Bart Hipple, a spokesman for Dining Services. “Once we get to that point, we try and be flexible and provide as much service as we can.”
Clarence Patterson, a food service manager, and Vicky Mendez both work at the Commons Shop and said that they had no trouble commuting to work today.
“We actually opened earlier because we were here,” Patterson said. “We were prepared well beforehand.”
Hipple said that Dining Services employees are considered essential personnel and can be called into work if needed, but are also responsible for making sure that they can safely get to the campus.
When Winter Storm Jonas shut down the campus at the beginning of this semester, Dining Services paid to house over 100 employees at various local hotels, Hipple said.
“We have hours that we’re guaranteed to be open, so we are open enough to make sure that students have adequate access to food,” he said.
In addition to a reduced staff, Dining Services offers disposable utensils and dishes when the university closes due to snow.
“We want to make sure we have as many stations open as possible and not run a smaller program for students because we don’t have enough staff, so we’d rather get the stations open than staff a full dish room,” said Jason Comoglio, the assistant director at the North Campus Dining Hall.
Comoglio said the dining halls are often busier when the campus is closed, so Dining Services staff are needed more at the food stations than in the dish room.
Dining Services also eliminates the trays in the dining halls when the university is closed for snow, because students in the past have repurposed the trays as sleds, Comoglio said.
“That’s kind of one of those folklores, but there is truth to that, and we’ll see people start to take them,” he said. “We kind of made it our policy because there is a chance we could lose half of our trays in one afternoon.”
